• History Studies

University of Limerick History Society Journal -...:,. Volume 3 2001 Editors Andreas Htilher Sarah Power

The University of Limerick History Society would like to acknowledge the generous SUppOl1 of our sponsors: Advisory Board Bernadette Whelan John Logan Prof. Roger G.H. Downer, President University of Limerick Department of Govemment and Society University of Limerick Foundation University of Limerick Prof. Pal O'Connor. Dean. College of Humanities. University of Limerick Or. John Logan. Head, Department of Government and Society. History Society Committee 2000-2001 University of Limerick Jennifer Kiely University of Limerick Students' Union Auditor Q'Mahony's Bookshop Katherine Harford Sarah Power Shane Kirwan His/on' SllIdi('s is a refereed publication of the University of Limerick History Public Relations Officer Secretary Treasurer Society und i, published annually. It is registered with the Irish International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) Centre at the National Library of Ireland. Anne-Marie Power Fintan Tuohy Commitee Member Cover design by lennifcr McCaffrey and Nora McGillieuddy, Limerick School of An Commitee Member and Design. Limerick Institute of Technology. The rowr incorporates the concept of past, present and future which is depicted firstly by the use of Ihe Buddhist symbol aI/m. The idea is secondly represented by h Id be addressed 10: The Editors, History three iJlu,trative heads looking in different directions. They symbolise the search All corresp~nde~ce s ou. . k Histor Society. University of for history by past. present and future historians. Studies, Umverstty o~ Ltmue~lc "ty of Zimerick Limerick. Ireland Limerick Student's Umon, , ntVerSl . or [email protected]. Copyright © by the contributors listed herein and History Swdies. 2001. including all bibliographical references.

No part of this publication may be reproduced. stored in a retrieval system. or transmitted in uny form. or by any means. electronic. mechanical. photocopying. recording. or otherwise. without the prior permission of the University of Limerick History Society...... :; Printed by Litho Press Lld .. Midleton. Co. Cork. ., ISSN 1393-7782 Contents Preface Preface Editorial ii On 12 November 1940. Winston ChuTchilL British Prime Minister. in a tribute to Neville Chamberlain, his predecessor. inquired, '(w)hat is the worth of all Socie.ty and Sympathy: Edmund Burke's this?'. He was referring to hislOry and il is a question which historians should Scottish Enlightenmem ask themselves every day. Indeed. even here in the University of Limerick. Seall Patrick Donlall which has established itself at locaL national. and international levels as a centre of excellence in history. this question should be borne in mind. UL C~\'ic. Identity and Corporate Idemity in Waterford hiswry faculty arc writing and publishing on a wide variety of topics. themes. Crty 111 the Eighteenth Century and periods dealing with people. place. and space. Faculty have published IJriall T. Kirh." IS seven books. edited three books. wrinen many more articles for scholarly journals. and delivered invited lectures, comributed to media programmes, and ..DeliriUIl1 and Disease''. The Hi'·,oty~ 0" M llSlurattOtlb' spoken at conferences among other activities. The healthy state of historical In the Nltlctcenth Century scholarship within UL is matched by student performance at undergraduate and Paul Montxolllery postgraduate levels. and indeed by the publication of this journal. History 30 seems to matter a great deal. Myth. Memory and the Frvmkiilllpfer of the Great In Ireland generally, history seems more vital and vigorous than it has War in Genmn History ever been. and the need for it more important than ever before. In addition to Neil )ako!J providing a 'liberal education'. it provides much more: history clarifies the 42 complexity and ullcertaimy of human affairs and expands on the variety of Education and the Cmholic Church in the Irish Free State human experience. It is suspicious of simplistic analysis. explanation. and John £. DlIggan solutions: it teaches proportion. perspective. reflection, breadth of view, 59 tolerance of differing opinions. and. therefore. a greater sense of self­ knowledge. We learn about other centuries. other cultures. and il is the best P'lddy on the Screen: Reactions 10 Cinematic Reprcscmations of Ireland antidote to a society which assumes that there is only the here and 1101\". There Midwel Farrelly is not only the here and now: there is 'here and there is rhell. And the best guide 81 to all is history. It helps to understand how our world got to be the way it is and T~e 1917 Russian Revolution in British Political Thought and others' worlds the way they are. The study of history has always been justified Llferaturc. 1918-1936: A Study in the Hislorv of Id in these terms and they still provide the most convincing answer to Churchill's . "J cas Gabnel B. Paquelll' question. 95

Romania ill 2000: A Look Back and a Look Forward Bemadetlc Whelun MA PhQ, Pett'r Barncs Patron -"'°1 It6 23 September 200 I Advenisclllcnts Contributors '29 134 His/ory SIt/dies 3/2001

Editorial Society and Sympathy: Edmund Burke's Scottish Enlightenment

The publication of HiJ"/or\' Stlldie,~ volume 3 marks Ihe b . . Sean Patrick Donlan period. The involvcmem 'of founder-editors David E F1.eg~nnl~g of a new Horgan. hllS come la an end.,Both heve done a magll1tJcenl..: cmltlg. b . and b··Edward Although there are signs that the situation is changing. Edmund Burke appears HWorl'Studies_. On beh"'f" 0'· the H'utor\' SoC/efl'. of th U" JO ltl esta '.lashing to be better appreciated outside of Ireland than within it. His role as British we. Ihe new editors, Ihank David and Ed· d f· h . e tJlverSlty of Lltnenck . ' war or I elr work They h d· parliamentarian perhaps suggests. as does Yeats', that Burke belonged to the 10 H· , 5 d' . easy tor us cOl11inue. and exp""d"I,~ Dry tl/ les. aYe ma e It Anglo-Irish Ascendancy, His anti-revolutionary writings, in the age of Wolfe study OfT~~st:arnyCli~ a~17vq,U~10;tdY of I,o,pi,cs t,ackled by the aUlhors, shows Ihat the Tone, might similarly suggest a reactionary apologist. Students of Burke will , " we ltl rei and al bOth d know. however. how much more complicated his links to Ireland were, Burke's postgraduate level. The articles presented here de I w. h ,u~ ergr~duate and father was a convert 10 the Church of Ireland. His mother. her family, arK! as educalion, medical history "od th F. wait a \anety of Issues such , .. e Irst arid War Th'"' h Burke's sister remained catholic. He also spent his early years. not in Dublin, future volumes of Hislon' Studies i h' h . IS gIves ope for but in rural Munster where he began his education (possibly in Irish) aOO topi~s even further. We 'hope that :~a~e;: w~~ p~~~ la broaden Ihe range of readlllg Ihe artides as we did editing them". g as much pleasure from observed first hand the civil disabilities imposed on his beloved relations. Throughout his life. his writings revealed a man deeply sympathetic to the plight of the Irish masses. Burke did not seek an Irish state, but to unite the Andreas Htither Sarah Power English and Irish more closely, He hoped to make the promise of the British constitution, the most 'enlightened' of his age. meaningful to the Irish nation. September 200 I Burke's literary and political abilities were early combined in A Vindication of Natural Society (1756), an anonymous parody of the 'primitivism' of Lord Bolingbroke, The piece was, in fact so well-written that it was mistaken as a genuine. and much-approved, work, His A Philosophical EnquiT)' into tile Origins ofthe Sublime alld Beautiful (1757) was to ensure his success in the world of letters. Burke begun to develop, in good eighteenth­ century fashion. a rich network of family and friends. In 1757 he manied Jane Mary Nugent. daughter of an Irish catholic doctor and a Presbylerian mother. He befriended many of the leading intellectuals and artists of the age, including Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, countryman Oliver Goldsmith, and David Garrick. Chief among his associates were also leading members of the so-cal1t>J 'Scottish Enlightenment', In the pages that follow, his associations, personal Ulld philosophical. wilh the'S€pts will be explored. Those figures associated with Ihe Scottish Enlightenment conducted a highly sophisticated critique of the methodological individualism, rationalism. and egoism (as exemplified in Hobbes, Locke. Mandeville) common to the early eighteenth CCllIury. Most of the Scots attacked, by way of the 'sociability' " Thanks to Charlolte Whiting and Tom Hulit for sup' po"- and he ,p. and 'sympathy' of Shaftesbury and Addison, both religious 'enthusiasm' aOO

It HiS/OfT Sflldies 3/2001 Historr Sl1uiies 3/2001

philosophical scepticism. It was a critique as historically sensitive as it was Hutcheson. institutional mtd communitarian, Drawing on comparative reports of the "new Burke's fe(."Ofded Scottish Enlightenmcnt did begin shonly after this world", and philosophical histories of the 'old', as well as the work of period. He appears to have met Hume as early as 1759, Reviewing the Scot's Montesquieu, many of the Scots articulated complex stadial histories History ofEngfll/ld, the Irishman wrote: emphasising both a humanist continuity of human nature as well as the dynamism ofcultural ch.mgc. Particular emphasis was placed on the manner in Our writers had commonly so ill succeeded in which Ihe commertial organisation of a society interacted with laws ruld. history ... that it was almost feared that the Briti~h manners. There were differences. [ntemal debates among the Scots, mirroring genius. which had so happily displayed ~tself 111 lhose in the rest of the English-speaking world, raged over Ihe public spirit ruld every other kind of writing, and had gamcd t~e participatory politics of the 'ancients' and the commerce and civil liberty of the prize in most. yet could not enter the list in. thiS. 'modems', And, given the Scottish relationship 10 England. their work reflected The historical work Mr. Hume ,.. publtshed. a change in the hislol)' of ideas that was as much geographical as it was discharged our countl)' from Ihis opprobrium.] chronological. Among Burke's early readings was the Scotch-Irish Frances Burke himself had begun a work on English history and, while the .cessation of Hutcheson. The 'father' of the Scottish Enlightenment. Hut('heson taught the work was more likely the result of the intensive demmlds of hiS employer. David Hume and Adam Smith. among others. He was both an original thinker the MP William Hamilton, lhe success of Hume's History may also ha,ve (in the 'moral sense') and Ihe conduit for "benevolist' thought. In an early influenced his decision,4 The second (and definitive) edition of Burk~'s ~"qltlry poem. Burke suggests that Hutcheson's Essay 011 rhe Nature alUi Condllct of included an "Essay on Taste'. generally thought to have been lIlsplred by the Po.nious and Affectiolls (1728) was a continualion of the work of the Hume's 'On the Standard of Taste', one of many such essays of the a.gc. ~ut 1 Greek Longinus. Longinus' 011 r!le Sublime was. of course. the st

J Annual Register (1761), p. 301 bi~. While the habit of publishing anonymous Alllllwl . h d't 'b'erved0" . on I 'Like thee too great Lunginus did beforerrhe secret movements of the Soul reviews makes the Register an unreliable source, as tee lors c:

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English \\hig. who assets the reality of the popish plOL an Insh Catholic. who denies the massacre in The author seeks for the foundation of the jus!. the 1641. and a Scotch Jacobite, who maintains the fit, the proper. the decent; in our most common inn(x:encc of queen Mary. must be considered as and most allowed passions; and making men beyond th~ reach of argument or reason. and approbation the tests if vinue and vice, and must be len to their prejudices.' shewing that these are founded on sympathy, he raises from this simple !ruth, onc of the most beautiful fabrics of moral theory, that has perhaps ever appeared.... it is rather painting than writing,9

In his promised letter, Burke continued, '(a) theory like yours founded on the Nature of man, which is always the same. will last, when those that arc founded on his opinions. which are always changing, will and must be forgotten.' 10 Developed independently. their economic views were also similar. Smith was to have remarked that Burke was 'the only man, who. without communication. thought on these subjects exactly as he did'.11 And Burke. returning the compliment. declared The Wealth of Nations (1776) 'in its ultimate results ... probably the most important book ever written',n Their political attitudes were also broadly similar and the two remained friends for some time. IJ 'David.Hurnc. The HislOry of Ellglmlll from The IlI\'asioll (!f ill/ill.I' Cae.mr TO rhe Burke also appears to have been close 10 William Robcrtson. President R('l'olllllOlI of 1688 (Indianapolis, 1983-')) vol IV 395 Cf h of Edinburgh University and Chief Moderator of the Church of Scotland. If M Q '. .' '. "., p.. . . t e portrayal of ary. ucen of SCOIs In Wllharn Robertson, 711e Hi!llon' of'Seotl I (L d lesser known today than Hume or Smith. Robertson was one of the most noted 1996). p. 170. -, mrc on on. • Annual RegiSTer (1759). p. 485. The entire first chapter ('Of Sympathy') is 6 'Lcner to Sir Hcrculcs Langrishc' (l792) in R.,B McDowell (od).. T'1,le IV··nTmgs allcI Spee('he.~ ._of Edlllwlll BlIrke (9 vols".Oxford 1981 -.1996) vo.I IX. p. 616. After extracted. e.xpeflcn~lI1g anti-Catholic 'Whiteboy' riots of the 1760s in Ireland and the Oordon 10 (10 Sept 1759) in T.W. Copeland (cd.), The Correspondence of Edmulld Burke (10 vols. Cambridge, 1978). vo!. L p. 129-30. flOtS.." which followed'.the relaxation of restraints.".,on E"gl,·'h Co,hol·" ICS, Bur'e k saw Slml ar flats over dISCUSSIOn of a Scottish Act of Toleration H J 11 Reported in Robert Bisset. Life of Edllllllld BlIrke (London, 2"" edition. 1800). voJ. Bos 11, . 't A. . e wrote to ames . ~c .saYlllg tIe mCflcan rebellion is lllore to my Taste than that which you are H, p. 429. 12 ~~kmg III the North.... and it ~ould hurt me rather more to have the Excise [ta:\:[ in Reported in Conor Cruise O'Brien. 7711' Great Melody: A Thematic Biography and y own house. than thc Mass 111 my Ncighbours. 'Letler 10 James Boswe!J" (! Mar Commemed AnThology of Elllmllld Burke (London. 1992), p. 144n I. Sce the more 1:79) .in PJ. Marshall (ed,), nle Corres/J(JIIdellce of Edmwul BlIrke (10 vOls'.. cautious review of The Wealt'; '(¥..NatiOlts in the AnnUlIl RegiS/er (1776), p. 24 I his. Cmlbr~dge, .19~1), 1'01. IV, p. 45-46. Robcrtson offered refuge and an armed guard to IJ Smith noted in his 1790 editicin of the Theory, published just after the French ~athohl"s wlthlll the gates of Edinburgh College, Ibid.. p. 46n2. Revolution began. that '(tlhe man whose public spirit is prompted altogether by (12 Apr. 1759) in J.Y.T. Greig (ed.), 77re 1.elTerJ of Dm'id Hume (2 vols.. Oxford. humanity lllld benevolence, will respect the established powers and privileges even 1969), \'01. L p. 301. of individuals. and still more those of the great orders and societies. inlO which the • (28 July 1759) in Ibid .. p. 312. state is divided'. Theory of Moral Sentimellts (1759: Indianapolis. 1984), p. 233.

4 5 HisTorl' STudies 312001 Hislor)' SI/Idies 312001

historians of the 'wc evcntuall be ' H' , • e . y commg IstorJographer-Roy

I have always thought with you. that we possess at 11 (9 June 1777) in Marshall. Correspondence of Ellmlllld Burke. vol. Ill. p. 350­ 35 J. "5ec Annllal RegisTer (1759). p, 490 " Annual RegiSler (1777). p. 215 biI. While a late review. Burke's duties had " ' AII/I/m! Rl'giJIl'r (1769) P '55 I' B gradually decreased afler the mid- 1760s. it is so close to Burke·s lel1cr as to permit . .. - JiS. urkc was critical larg,'Y bccau;" of th 5 attributing it to him. cots neglect of Eng I'IShi'aw and margmahsmion, of Engl· d·· '.... , e I. Ibid. an III COnllncntal affaIrs. 10 ·Letter 10 the Sheriff of Bristol",- in W.M. Elofsoll and l,A. Woods (eds.). The WriTings ond Speeches of Edll1fnd Burke 1996). It. p. 299. " W'II"I Jalll Robcnson. The PrvgreH ofSodet·· E .'. (Oxford. vo!. Burke The SlIhl'enion of tl RE'.· .1 1/1 I/rope. A H,sTOrical OUlline from pointed oul that Robertson had 'the merchantile comfort of finding the Balance of . :. le OIn(1II _mpm: 10 The Beginning of rhe SixT,'enl!1 CeIlT/ln' trade infinitely in your favour: and I console myself wilh Ihe smugg consideration of {111lr~d~cI:()n 10 7711' lIisrory of Clmrles 10. (1769; Chica o. 1972) . V()lrmr~· s Account oflh O· .. .. g . p. 57. Cr. uninformed natural acuteness. that I have my Warehouse full of Goods at anothcrs . c nglll of Chivalry 111 Al/lllla! Regixter (<760) 176 178 1nl". ' pp. - Expellce', (7 June 1777) in Marshall. Corre.I"{X!IllleIlCe of Edmund Bllrke. vo!. Ill. p. 352.

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i~ . H b ed w·,th Burke Smith and Hume COtltrcl Hutcheson. Thc record of other Sconish links less clear. Burke established a was Beattle. e 0 serv ," . friendship with Henry Home, Lord Kamcs, of the Scottish Court of Session, that the 'one way to the knowledge of nature's works ... lwas] obser.:atlon and Kames was a juris!. an historian, and a moralist. His EfelllellfS of Criticism experiment' .'~ Reid thought enough of Burke to end the preface to hIS Essal"~' 'th long passage from Burke s (1762), was an 'organic' aesthetics that Burke thought effcctively continued his 011 rhe Intellectual Powers of Man (1785),Wl a . own Enquiry. The Reverend Hugh Blair, Edinburgh Profc~sor of Logic. made Enquirr reiterating this POillt.27 Dugald Stewart. philosopher an~ bIOgrapher use of Burkc's EllquiJy in his courses on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. He was of Reld,..I.was a so acquamted with Burke and quoted (if somewhat maccur.Jtely).. 'indebted [to Burie] for sevcml ingeniolls and original thoughts' and 'many of from the Enqwry,. " All of this is to suggest the mutual sympathIes between adopted:~1 whose sentiments on [sublimity] I have Burke knew John Mil1ar, Burke and the 'Common Sense' school. Glasgow Professor of Civil Law and fonner pupil of Smith. While Millar Burke was also friendly with the Scot Jam~s Bosw~11. attorney ~ would become progressively critical of Burke's response to the revolution in · 'h f Johnson. Boswell is not normally lmked WIth the ScottIsh bIOgrapero 'h l'g-buthewasa France, in the mid 1780s he could write, '[fJor my own part I must look upon Enlightenment - perhaps another subject wort exp orm . it as onc of the mo~t fortunate circumstances of my life that brought me into student of Smith and an associate of nearly all of its important members. In hIS 12 youracquaintallce·. This relationship was due in part to Burke's appointment LIfe ofJolmsoll, Boswell reported that he and Johnson (twice) as Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. Smith succeeded him. Burke was also a member of both the Royal Society of Edinburgh (with James stood talking for some time together of Bishop Beattie, l'lugh Blair, John Home, Thomas Reid and Robertson) and Glasgow's Berkeley's ingenious sophistry 10 prove l~e no~­ 'Litemry Society' (with Adam Fergllson, Hume, Reid. and Smith). existence of matter. and thal every thlllg III These personal associations were joined by professional admiration, universe is merely ideal. I observed, that thou~h w: James Beattie, poet and Aberdeen Professor of moral philosophy. thought are satisfied his doctrine is not true, It IS Burkc 'onc of the most agreeable mcn I have ever secn'.'·1 Beattie's Essay 011 Truth (1770) has aged poorly. but was a favourite of the King and of Johnson, ,. 'Essay on the Importance of an Inquiry into lhe Human Mind' in A/lnlwl Register and Bcattie himself notes that Burke '[p)raises all my works'.14 Significantly. (1764), p. 190 his. Burke wrote that Beattie 'establishes the standard of Truth in Commoll SemI" 11 It rcads, in part: '.nch of thul variely of and his 'gmnd effolt ... has been to expose the sceptical systems of Bishop 'The variety of the passions is great. und worlhy m every. bra . d the Berkelcy and Mr. Hume',L'l Thomas Reid. the principal advocate of Scottish an allenlive investigation. The more accurately we search tnt~ the human mm., f ~ Common Sense philosophy, was a far sharper critic of Hume (and Locke) than stron er traces we every where find of his wisdom who made Lt: . The elevallon ~he ;ind ought to be the principal end of all our ~tudies, whLch Lf they do not 1n some measure effect, they are of little service 10 us. , bl' 11 Hugh Blalr, Lectllre.I' 011 Rhetoric and Belles Lel/res (1783; Carbondalc. 1965), p. "rke A Philosophical Ellqlliry illfo lhe Origin of ollr Ideas of the Su ~me 55. Edmu od B.. , . XIX 48 Sce Wllham and the Beautiful (1757; Oxford, 1998), pI. I. sectIOn . p. . 11 (13 Nov, 1785) in William C. Lehmann. John Mill(lr ofGla.I'gml' 17J5~/801: His Hamilton (ed.). The Works of Thomas Reid (Edinburgh, 1895), vo!. 1. Ufe mu! Thought al/d his Contributions tv Svdolo!?ical Analysis (Cambridge, ,. The passage in lhc originaJ,rcads: . fi . 1960), p. 356. h ' I' :i:",1 on itself tends to concenter Its forces, and to It It ll1W 'Y .• .' " II R.S. Walker (cd.). lame,\' Bel/nie's LondOI/ Diary 1773 (Aberdeen. 19-1.6). p. 33. 'Whatever turns t e sou h sical causes are for greater and slronger nights of sCIence. By lookll1g lilt: p y. I h we Bcatlie'~ Di.uertatiolls Muml ([nd Critical was reviewed in AIIIHwl Regi,\'f('r (1783), minds are opened and enlarged: and in this ~Urs~lt whelher ""e take or W lct er p. 207 bili. h I ce is certainly of serVLce. lose our game. 1 e clan 'flhe Lifc and Writings ,. Scc Annllal Register (1771), p. 252 bi.\'. Burke, Philmophical Enquiry, p, 5. Sce ,Stewart, .Account 0 "' AII/lllal Hegixll'r (1771), pp. 253. 255 bi.l'. of Thomas Reid' in Hamilton, Works of7homas Re/d.

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impossible to refute it I never shall forget the Edinburgh Professor of pneumatics and moml philosophy. Burke knew alacrity with which Johnson answered. striking his Fcrguson and, given Ferguson's place in the debate on luxury. their food with a mighty force against a large stone. till conversations or correspondence would certainly prove illuminating. If Burke is he rebounded from it. ,] refute it rhus." often placed on the side of luxury and commerce - he had in the Vindication satirised the picture of an idyllic ·state of nature' - Ferguson's more complex Just after this story. \\cll worth repeating on its own. Boswcll remarks that civic history providcd a much less naivc critique. Burke agreed, too, with had. Burkc n?t. becn diverted by politics. he might have taken up the figh; Ferguson's social and 'benevolist' analysis, against authors whu 'have set out againSt sceptlcl>.rn. 1011ll>.on's action by considering [man] as an animal. solitary by nature· or 'not satisfied with this blindness 10 what we read and see of his condition. in almost all ages mu 3l was a stout excmplification of the firsT Trurhs of countries. have no less preposterously made him a mischievous one. Atu Pere BOII/fier. or the original principles of Reid while Burke·s observation that "art is man's nature', a sentiment frequently and of Beattie: without admitting which. we can nu expressed by Hume and others, has been the subject of much scholarly ink. he more argue in mctaphysicks. than wc can argue in would have found few who conveyed it as clearly as Ferguson did, "We speak of mathematics without axioms. To me it is not art distinguished from nature', Ferguson wrote, "but art itself is natural to conceivable how Bcrkeley can be answered by pure man'.l2 reasoning: but I know that the nice and difficult The intersection of the ancient-modem debate, both cultural am task was to have been undertaken by one of the economic, with the dilemma posed by the ·revolution in France' also bears most luminous minds of the present age. had not investigation. Given Burke's own sympathies with. or estrangement from, a polilicks "turned him from calm philosophy aside.' Celtic past, it should hardly be surprising that he was involved in the debate What an admimble display of subtilty. united with over lames MacPherson's Ossian (1762-1763). Burke was initially enthusiastic brilliance. might his contending with Berkc1ey about these Scotch variants of Irish legends, there being 'far less doubt of the H have afforded us! How must we. when we reflect on merit. than of the authenticity' of the work. Even in translation. they the loss of such an intellectual feast. regret that he prescrved 'the majcstic air. and native simplicity of a sublime original' ..\.l But should be chamcterised as the man. both he and Humc. that most anglicised Scot with whom Burke discussed the forgery.3~ "Who born for the universe narrow'd his mind, cycle, slowly and grudgingly came to accept Ossian as modem This And to party gave up what was meant for rnankindT"9 may, allhough it need not. bear on the larger cultural and economic issues. But it may be suggested that while Ferguson may have been sympathetic to the What~ver the truth of this project and there is some additional evidence for it. ancients. and Hume and Johnson 10 the modems. Burkc's place may be more Burke s general symp~thies with this bmnch of Scottish philosophy is clear..lO ambiguous. He might have found himself in the more awkward position of More frustrating. for understanding Burke·s 'Scottish' enlightenment is

the absence of any dctmled record of his relationship with Adam Ferguson. 31 Reviewing Ferguson's Ess(lY 011 the History of Civil Society (1767) in Annual Regis/er (1767). p. 308 bis~~ :: lames Bo~we~l. Life of Jollllsoll (1791: Oxford. 1998). pp. 333-33-l-. ]l Anlll/al RcgiIter (1767). p.)J 1 hi.\". l .. AIII/ual Register (t760), p. 253 bis. lie was said. III preparation for a Glasgow professorship - see "00,° , h ~ ". '. 'u ~-I) ave gUll no le>.s than a refutation of th..: systems of his own countryman the celebrated H Allnull! Register (1761), p. 276 bis. Berkcley. and of Humc.' Jamcs Prior, A Ufe of the Rig/a HOllourable Edl/1/1l1d Burke 35 See the 'Letter to Rev. Hugh Blair' (19 Scpt. J763) in Greig, Letters of DOI'id (London. 5th edition. J854). p. 38. HI/me, vo!. I. p. 303. "------10 11 HistOlJ> Studies 3/2001 History Studies 312001

Smith, recognising the virtues, but never forgetting the vices, of luxury an::l that inundation.'oIO More than he is credited with, Burke understood the modernity. And, in the case of Burke, this equivoc:ltionmay have Irish sources. difference between speculative Jacobinism of 'men of parts' and that 'which The Irish and Scottish situations were very different. Following the arises from Penury and irritation, from scorned loyalty, and rejected Allegiance, union with England and Wales in 1707, Scotland had experienced rapid [which] has much deeper roots. They take their nourishment from the bottom economic development. Continuing links to a more marital and independent of human Nature and the unalterable constitution of things' .41 . Highland Gaelic culture, made debates as much about English cultural In good Whig fashion, Burke feh the sufferings of Ireland were due III dominance as about commerce. The union had also done little to alter no small part to the distortion, as in Hume, of Irish history. Burkc sharply Scotland's internal social structure. If they no longer controlled a political criticised 'those miserable performances which go about under the names of sphere, so important to the civic traditions, the Scots continued to control what Histories of Ireland [and whichl would persuade us, contmry 10 the known order we have come to call 'civil society' ,.lfl The literati remained free to develop a of Nature, that indulgence and moderation in Governors is the ~atur..ll polite society of association and conversation. In Ireland. while Dublin was incitement in subjects 10 rebel' .42 It is among our regrets that Burke did not Britain's second city and retained an independent parliament. beyond the Pale himself take up the the great masses of the people continued, less by choice than by legal and social exclusion, to live a way of life only nominally within the English interior history of Ireland, the genuine voice of its cultural orbit. With its civil disabilities and confiscations, it remained a colony records and monuments, which.... [would] restore to, rather than a partner in, the Empire, Nature to its just rights, and policy to its proper These differences \vere not lost on Burke and he directed his order. For they even now show to those who have considerable rhetorical resources against these Irish exclusions. The nation was been at the pains to examine them, and they may effectively divided 'into two distinct bodies, without common interest. show one day to all the world, that these rebellions sympathy, or connection. One was to possess all the franchises, all the were not produced by toleration, but by property, all the education: the other was to be composed of drawers of water persecution-that they arose not from just and mild and cutters of turf for them.'J7 Writing 10 his son Richard. who was working government. but from unparalleled oppressIon.. " with the Irish Catholic Committee, Burke stated that the '(n)ew ascendal/cy is the old JIlllSter.rhip, 'JR And as Jacobinism spread throughout Europe. he Burke instead sought change as part of a union. social at least if not ~Iitic~l. ~lln became even marc adamant that Irish catholics ought 10 be freed from legal between Ireland, the 'place of his nativity'. and England, which "had raised disabilities, Catholicism was. 'as things stand, the most effective Barrier. if not to stalUs and honours',+< As things stood, the great majority of the populatton the sole Bamer, against Jacobinism' ,J9 Their 'religious principles, _ Church of Ireland had not the liberty or leisure afforded those in Scotland, polity, and habitual disciple, - might make them an invincible dyke against 'Q "Second Lettcr to Sir Hercules Langrishe' (26 May 1795) in McDowcll, Writings J6 As used by the SCOlS and most of the eighteenth century. 'civil society' was the and Speeches of Ednllmd llurke, p. 668. civilised association of nten inclusive of the whole society (state, market. etc.). 'I 'To the Rev. Thomas Hussey' (Pew 9 Dec 1796) in Marshal!. Correspondence of " 'Letter to Sir Hcrcu1cs Langrishe' (1792) in McDowelL Writings and Speeche.r of Edmllnd Bllrke, vol. IX, p. f'6~ El}lIIlIlId Barke. p. 597. ., Tracts Relating 10 the Popery Laws' in McDowell, Writings and Speeches of -'I 'LCtlcrlO Richard Burke' (19 Feb. 1792) in McDowell. Writingl· {/nd Speerhes of Edllllllld BlIrke, pp. 478-9. EilIllIllU} Burke, p. 644. Spt'ecJlt'~· ., Ibid., 479. d d .. 'Letter to William Smith' (291an. 1795) in McDowel1. WritingI emd of •• 'Letter to John Kcogh' (17 Nov, It796 J) in Marshal!. Correspomlence of E IIIl1Il Eilll/lIIu} Barke. p. 663. Bllrke, vol. IX, p. It3

12 13 His/ory S/udies 312001 HiS10l)' Studies 31200/

, Betwccn them, Burke and the Scots exemplified the most pressing Civic Identity and Corporate Politics in Waterford ~cb.ttes .and dc.vclopments of the eighteenth century, Like the Scots. Burke City in the Eighteenth Century found himself 111 the debate between the past and the r t 8 h , .. u ure. ut w ereas the Btian T. Kirby argumcnt for an anghclsed commcrce and Scottish culture was largely polite and peaceful. a~ the century·s end. Burke faced. or so hc saw it. the root and b~nch dcstnJCtlo~ of enlightened Europe. itself the precarious result of a long As one of the oldcst urban settlements in Ireland the city of Waterford can trace tr~lIn o~ ~rogress II1ma~ners. la~s. and human commerce. This 'enlightenment' its origins as a corporate entity to the early medieval period. A product, primarily, of the ethnic division between Anglo-Nommns and the existing W,lS qU

L Literally the old Norse for '~ndy fjord', John Bradley and Andrew Halpin. 'The Topographical Development of Scandinavian and Anglo- Norman Waterford' in WilIiam Nolan and Thomas Power (cds.), Wate!ford, History alld Society (Dublin. 1992). pp. 105·29 at p. 105; Eamonn McEncany. ·Origins·. in idem. (ed.). A History of Waterford and its Mayors (Waterford, 1995). pp. 21-37. at p. 30. l Julian Wahon. The Royal Charters of Waterfort! (Waterford. 1992). p. 49.

14 15 Hi~,tory Stl/dies 312001 HiSlOry Studies 3/2001

Civic governmem was placed in the hands of a corporation made up of corporation lay the corPIl~' or body which. in its most mdimentary form. was an the 'mayor. sheriffs and the citizens of Watelford: But on an ideological level assembly of citizens. the Charter conveyed a pertinent sense of historical continuity as it laid out the The principal organ of the corporation. the common-council. became origins of the political structures which derived from corporatism: the locus of civic identity in the municipality. It consisted of forty members with a two-tier structure consisting of a lower order of nineteen common (a) body corporate is defined to be an assembly arxl coullcilmen (also known as assistants) and an upper level comprising eighteen joining together of many persons 111 one aldemlen.6 A requirement for election to the highest office of the corporation. brotherhood, fellowship, whereof one is chief aOO the mayoralty. was that one had to be un aldetl11an. The two sheriffs were. the rest are the body and this head and body joined however. drawn from the ranks of the assistants. No distinction was made in the l together make the corporation. chamber in which the two orders sat jointly, the common council. Elections to both orders. particularly after the passing in 1672 of what ',','ere known as the new m1es governing corporations in Lreland, were confined to the members who composed the council. Enacted partly in response to the growing independence of Irish municipal bodies, the new rules represented a systematic aHe~lpt to, bring ~he governance of corporate towns in lreland more into line WIth theIr E.nghsh coumerparts.7 Facilitating attempts to curtail wayward freemen assembhes the new rules marked a significant codification of the practices of municipal government in Ireland. The regulations re-imposed a modicum of royal control upon the towns as henceforth nominations t~ senior ~~itions .in 8 their corporations had to receive the approval of the Pnvy Council In Dubhn. ~e mayor. sheriffs. recorder and town clerk in Waterford all had !O pass t~lS particular test before taking office.9 The enactment of the new rul~~ taken with ,A number uf translations of the Great Charter of Waterford (7 Charles. I) were made. the pre-eminent position of the Great Charter and the local tradlttons adopted An excellent transcripl of the original Charter can be consulted in the reading room over time by the corporation gave municipal government in Waterford a very of Wlnterforcll Cfityj A{rchivesl whilst a number of printed editions were also distinctive char.:tcteL The customs and by-laws of the corporation were. by produced. Timothy Cunnigham. (ed.), Magna Charta Libertaf!llll Cil·itati.f Waterford definition, a unique response to the needs of civic life in the city. (Dublin. 1752). p. 11. par. 24. Laler. a reprint of Cunningham's edition was produced with e:>;phlllatory notes, 11Ie Great Charter 0/ the Liberties of Ihe Cif)' of Waleiford. to \i'hich i.I' addnllhe List of the Mayors. Bailiff:.' and Sheriff\', from the " Kenneth MHne. 'The Corporation of Waterford in the Eightccnth Century' in Yeor 1177 to the Year 1806llldllsil'e (Kilkenny. 1806). Nolan and Power (eds.). Wmeiford. HislOry and Society. pp. 331-50. at p. 335. -l William MolYllcu:>;. 7711: Case uf Irell/Ild being BOl/lld by Acts of Parlialllem ill 125 Charles c. 2. enacted b):,ficcree on 23 Sepl. 1672. Rules. Orders alld Dirl'ctiollS Ellglwul. Statell (Dublill. 1698: cd. J.G. Simms. Dublin. (977); see also TO. M{ule and Esrahlishell br ItS Ill" Lord Lieutenant. for rhe Better Regltlaling the Sel'eral McLoughlin, Contesting Ire/and. Irish Voices agaim'l Englalld ill the Eighteenlh Cities. Walled Towns a;ld Corporations of Cork, Waterford ... and the EleCling of Celltun' (Dublin. 1999). pp. 53-55. Magistrate.f tlrere, Hill. 1660-1800' , S 'Jacqucline 'Corpor;l1isl Ideology and Practice in Ireland. 111 .1. 'Jacqueline HilL 'Corporntisl Ideology and Practice in Ireland: 1660-180<)'. ,p. 7:. Connolly (ed.). Puliricalldeas ill rhe Eighteenth Centltry (Dublin. 2000). pp. 64-82. 9 Apl,elldix 10 the Finl RelWrl of Ihe Commi.Hiolll'rs Aplwlflted 10 l'lqlllre Into at p. 72, Municipal Corporatioll.l' ill Ireland. pI. J. p, 587. H.C. 1835 (23). pp. :>;xllii. 143.

16 17 History Studies 312001 l-fiswry Swdie.\ 312001

means. birth, marriage or apprenticeship (for seven years under a free master). Alternatively. if, as increasingly became common in the course of the eighteenth century, one could not prove one's right to admission. one could receive it by special favour of the mayor. Underlying civic attitudes were shaped by a seminal distinction drawn between those who merely resided in the city

I- As late as 1833 the mayor of the city. William Hobbs. contended that re~idency or 'a persons residence in the city does not constitute a right to freedom' (N.L.1.. MSS 3138. ff 5-6). lC 1- r . 11 For the links between Locke and Irish corporatist expression see lacqueline Hill, ae-que me Hill. From Patriots to Unionists, Dublin Chic Politics and Irish 'Corporalist Ideology and Practice in Ireland. 1660-1800', p. 77; lames Kelly. Prot/,stal/t PatriUli.\·/II, 1660-/840 (Oxford. 1997) '9 IJ 77 G . p. . 'Perceptions of Locke in Eight~nth Century Ireland' R.tA Pmc. 89 (1989). sect. c., ., le relit Charter of tlte Uberties of the Cit)' of Waterford (Kilkenn 18(6) see cxpl~natory notc for par. 43. y, . p, pp. 24 - 27. ;? 1. lacqueline Hill. 'The Politics of Dublin Corporation' in David Dickson. Daire R C..D.A. LClg.htoll. ClItflOlicisl/1 in a Protestant Kingllolll, a Smdv of rhe Irish A. Keogh and Kevin Whelan. (eds.). TIle United Irishmen, Republicanism, Radicalism /'8/111/' (Dublin. '994). p. 76. . IIClen and Rebellion (Dublin 1993). pp. 88-101. at p, 92. I' 1 I' acque mc Hill. 'Corporatisl Ideology and Practice in 1"°1"'''' "nd, 1660-180

18 19 Hisrol)' Sludies 3/2001 t-!iswry Studies 312001

But whilst the residual catholic element in Ir' beginning of the eighteen,', .'.'O"y d" .~" Ish towns was from the .....", ...mu. access to c" "1 pragmalism was afforded to catholics w'th. IV.IC P~VI ege, a cenain l 'fable, 1.1 Freeman Admissions to the Corporation of the City oJ from acts drawn up by the mayor and th , respee~ to .tradmg fights. IS Deriving a formula was cfented whereby who t bee c0r:?ratton lrlth~ ~venteenth century, WaterJonfO a cnlllc r..nown as CII'IS re or ciliz . substance could be admitted free of the city I~ Th f ens m Catholic Admissions exercise the privileges in trade auached to city fn.':~ fCCmen. were allowed to Years Total Admissions 43 merchandise from the city without the .. III o~ 10 t~POrt or export \75 180 This was open to lmdesmell wilh means p:.~ment. ot a.llY city dutIes or customs. 1760-1769 237 24 not qualified for the statu•. of· c,. '. . 0. restded .t~ the town but who were 1770-1779 574 \9 • ~ 1'1.\ le et 1IOIII/IIe or Cttlze . b 2 namc. If was the latter I r ns In su stance (llId in 1780-1789 444 w 10. ns reemen of the corn.-. t' . 47' <.:hnrtcr to be included in 'he go r' 'I'~ra Ion. were entltled under 1790-1800 226 vernment 0 the clly as c·t" . Af'"' merchants (as it wns specific' 11 h· I Ilzens. 'Iuent catholic . a y t IS C nss who bellelited) ft" d h It was widely held that just as economic functions were derived from Corporntlon for qualification to the limited ri hts .. pe I lone t e to sides accepled thal the privileges eded g 01 ~reelTl~n In trude alone. Both distinctive rights and privileges attached the relevant order or body of society, these catholic f cone were parttal. wIth no possibility that political functions were seen as concomitant features of citizenship. The reemen were due the recognitiOl . h f' . willingness was ever expressed t . d' 1 or ng ts 0 cltlzenship. No survival of corporate traditions and of municipal institutions. like the common council, whi<.:h governed according to its precepls, left an indelible mark upon certainly not to exercise) any fonn ~f ~;~:~~atlh~~~ct:~:.lthY indi viduals to (and the polilics of representation in Waterford city. In Watetford the parliamentary franchise. as nOled above. was held by the freemen of the corporation who, along with a smaller group of freeholders. made up the borough's eleclorate. Although the composition of the freeman-body varied. the constituencies of the corporate towns were generally relatively large. This was pnrtly a refleclion of conflicting interests within the governing councils. Watctford, for instance. InJ towards the close of the eighteenth century an electorate of nbout 1.000. one half of whom. it was reponed were 'foreigners' .11 Potential freemen after an nct passed in 1748 were no longer required to be aClUally resident in allY corporate

"D 'd . '''''''':''''d?tC,.,', 'TO"P· CpathOltCs and Tradc 111 Elghtcenth Century Ireland R...... o\\cr and Kevm Whelan an Old Debate C f I' (eds). Endllf(/llLe (Int! Emel {/{ 10 ICS ill Irelwul i/l Ihe Eiglueemh Cenlun (Dubl 1990 gel/Cl'. 107. . tIl. J. pp 85/10. atp lQ Alphabefical list of Freemen of Ihe City af Wateiforl/ Oil Ihe Boob of Ihe ,. 'L Corporation of said City ... (W.C.A. T.N.C.l1/4); Council Minutes. (W,C.A. arge parchment book'. entries from 1654 1700 f . L.A.lJlI/AIlO-13). • Prior to 1194 catholics were merely granted specific privileges 1Il1lyor and the Corporation. sce the d- 0 ~he dlffercm acts made by the LA II/I/A/O?). SI' un me

20 2\ Hisro/)' Srudies 3/2001 History Studies 312001

lown 10 become free. This led to the creation f . . Thomas Christmas.u With political influence vested in such a small freemen or foreigners.;::: 0 what were temled non-reSident proportion of the population. personal ties and clientalism were peculiarly The extent and composition of the freeman bad importam. Access to a large reservoir of funds was also essemial as the Masons ~ghle~nth c~ntur~ w~~ but one product of Ihe intense ~tru~J:t i~ht~eC~:S~~t:~~ quickly discovered, Support for prestige projects lent not only credibility but .t'~ lwet:n vanous lamthaJJy based g h e also a high sense of civic standing. Mary Mason let it be known how her father. order 10 make the council and consl~~ups, as t ey contended with each other in families came broadly fro . uency more amenable to lheir interests. The John Mason. had advanced money. interest free. for a new quay in the city in 1718, and 'for that and all the roads about the town,.;:5 and wa;tcd as inle~sts in tr::e :~~~~.~ genlry. background and lheir fortunes "~dXed I were. 111 turn. created or usurped. But the Masons were not to enjoy complete supremacy in the council for long. as from the late 1730s onwards disputes with an opposing faction led Tahle, 1.2 Member,l' of Parliament fOI" rhe City of Warn/ord, 17/5-1803 by a local merchant and aJdennan. Ambrose Congreve, intensified. Congreve was the lessee of an extensive estate from a local almshouse. the charity 1715·38 Thomas Christmas 1776-82 CorneJius Bolton jnr. hospital of the Holy Ghost. In what may have been an attempt to enhance his John Mason Robert Snapland Carew support amongst council members. Congreve had. in 1728. let part of these 1739·40 Thomas Christmas 1783-97 Henry AJcock holdings to the corporation including plots which would later become the Roben Carew Roben Snapland Carew fashionable bowling green just off the Mall,26 A Jater addendum attached to the 1741-4 Christmas Paul 1799­ William Congreve Alcock lease. dated 10 April 1734, proved that it was the intem of both parties that the 27 1749-68 Samuel Barker 1800 Robert ShapJand Carew corporation should hold the property forever. Two years later. in 1736. Shapland Carew 1801-02 William Congreve Alcock Congreve had acquired enough support in the common council to be elected 1769-76 Shapland Carew 1803-32 Sir John Newport mayor. Located in a prime setting for urban dcvelopmem. the corporation would Cornelius Bolton snr. eventually divide up the estate into lots and underlet them in 1782 to favoured clients.28 As David Dickson has remarked. this pmctice of letting out ':n~~e each f:l1niJy was able to maintain at various times a fiml . strategically Jocated and profitable estates for inordinately Jong Jeases (99 years parll.lmentary representation of th b h gnp upon the e Orollg lhe struggle for heoe .J corporation itself remained fairly live! Th f .' . ~ mOl.1Y ~n tie l' Thomas Christmas was M,P. for Waterford city from 1715 10 1747 and was a support' lh~ .. y. e Irst farll1Jy to enJoy slglllficant rn c common council III the ]770s we h M cousin of Aland Mason. The Christmas family were. in turn. related 10 another sLlccession of profitable and well-connected- . re t e asons. Through a prominent family in Waterford·s politics. the Paul"s of Paullsvil1e. County Carlow. Aland Mason and the only daughter of the w r~~ITI~ges most notabJy between Thomas Christmas·s sister, Elizabeth, was married to Jeffry Paul whose son. of Grandison, in J747 Ih M. ea t y ocal magnate. the first Earl Christmas Paul. represented the city in parliament from 1741 to 1748. See [eopYI _ ' e asons ellJoyed a stead .. ., Illnuence was cuJtivated through J. t". . Y rISe m prestrge. Their Aland Mason to Thomas Christmas. 161uly 1740. where the fonner promises his :;--:---=- --=~'_=:e a tons such as Dean Alexander Aleock2l arxl support for Christmas Paul in any forthcoming city contest. (P.RO.N.I .. Villers Stuan Papers. T313I!B/4/6). R:lll'.'Gen. rile..10 (1748) ~ce'. AWP. , MaJcolllson, 'The Newtown A f :, Mary Mason to John Mason. 14 June 1718 (P.RO.N.I.. Villers Stuart Papers. "evI:ron and Recon ... truclinn' in I.H.S 18 (1972), pp. 313-344. ct 0 t748. T3131/Bl1/9). ,~lcxander AInX'k was chancellor of the cathedral chapter in 1. [Copy] extracts from cOIlIlG.il books and other corporation records. leases Irelaling LI~mofC from 1692 10 1740, He was married 10 l' W

22 23 His/ory Studies 3/200/ History Studies 3/2001

for the bowling green lots) was common in many corporate towns. and above lying under an obligation to anyone below frequently stemmed from intra-corpormion struggles for suprcmacy,:'9 me and much more for anyone so beneath me as an Nominations to council positions were vigorously fought over by menial servant", I shall no longer desire or expect Supporters of the Mason and COllgrcve c1alls in the late 1730s and injected an air a vote, or his serving me. [from someoneJ that of vitality into the council meetings. Intm~corporate strife and factional ism [was) so blind and bare fac[e]d as 10 brake [sic] his inevitably led to claims of mismanagement and venality. In 1738 nineteen word with me. 32 members of the council signed a bill against the mayor Simon Vashon and the chamberlain (both Congreve supporters), allegedly to stop 'their hands from But it was the use of corporation procedures and by-laws to entrench or un~e~t a cmbezling [sic] the ('ity revenue·.-1O For all the emphasis placed upon the particular interest which lay at the hean of the modus operandi of mU~lclpal supremacy of corpomte privilcge. there were occasions whcn proceedings in the politics in Waterlord. Exercises in factional politics were made ac~rdmg to council resembled a comic farce. Recalling ajollmey into town Aldemmn Henry distinctive legalistic formulas used in almost all the corporate ,towns tn 1~1~~. Alcock: described how he had an opportunity to meet Aldennan Moore 'nying Appeals to the Privy Council made under the new rules for dIsputed mumclpal from a council that the mayor rCongrevel had appointed to be held thm day at appointments and. more frequently, petitions to the house o~ com~ons one of the clock'. It was customary for every council member to attend the complaining of irregular returns at parliamentary contests, became mcreasmgly mayor when called to do so, after all, this was a dignity conferred upon the chief common.l3 Little wonder that Mary Mason counselled her brother John t? magistrate by charter, However. far from fulfilling any semblance of duty to the avoid the eity while a parliamentary contest took p~ace in Decem~~ 1747 unlll mayor, both Alcock and Moore fled 'and took: shelter at Lismore' leavincr the o 'talk of it may be over for you know it is not [an] mile day w.ond~r .. council unable to meet 'for want of a sufficient number to concur' in what The continuity of families active in the corporatIOn m Watetford IS Alcock called 'the mischief intended by iL " testament 10 a desire to defend patrimonies built up over generations. Henry Ensuring a majority in council was potentially an expensive business Alcock in 1740 reminded Aland Mason that what was at stake was not any plan even for the affluent Mason family. Conviviality and the cultivation of social for self-aggrandisement, but father the preservation of an innuence; ties W:lS considered vital in the securing of a following, Eighteenth century social mores and prejudices were commonly accommodated in mtitudes to that has become as it were hereditary in your political representmioll. When Aland Mason heard that his solicitation of the family and the means you use to obtain it are Murray 1:1mily. former servants of his. had failed 10 convince them to lend their no[ne] other than by saving your family from support for his favored candidate (Christmas Paul) at an ensuing parliarnemary comest in the city, he W:lS livid:

COllsider[ingj the ingratitude and impertinence of that family to me ... I thank God I have a spirit 31 [copy] Aland Mason to lohn Alcock. 20 Sept. 1740 (P.RO.N.1.. Vil1ers Stuart Papers, T313 I/B/4/9). .. 3l There was a disputed return in the parliamentary election in the cIty m 1739 ~'~en 1" David Dickson, 'Large Scale Developers and fhe Growth of Eighteenth Century Ambrose Congreve was unseMtd by Rolxrt Carew: In 1761 an unsuccessful pelHlOn Iri~h Cilies' in P. Butcl and L.M. Cutlcn (cds.), Cities alld Mer'!la!ltS. Frt'l/dl (lnd was made against the returns o(\Samuel Barker and Shapland Carew: In 1769 Henry /l"i.\"1I Pl'r~pel"lil"e.f 011 Urban DI.'I·e!opmelll (Dublin, 1985). pp. 109-20, m p. J17. Alcock was unseated after a petition from Shapland Carew; In 1802 after

24 25 His/OI:I' Swdies 312001 Hisrory Srudies 31200/

dishonour. and your native city from Figure 1.3 Eighteenth Century Familial U'lks be~)I'eell Parliamelltary destmction,'~ Representmives for Waterford elly,

John Mason The ability to secure an independent means was closely tied to hopes of Richard = Susanna, M,P. 1695-96 corporate and parliamentary representation. With origins in an eighteenth Christmas Mason century rediscovery of classical virtue. it was argued that only those who were 1703-13 financially independent could succ("Cd in representing the public's interest. As a.~serted above pedigree as much a.-; wealth could detenninc a candidale's chances of success in both parliamentary and council elections. The founding of local 1------1 dynasties in city politics can commonly be traced to fruitful legacies and endowments, When, in 1740, the premature dealh of the M.P, for the city, Thomas Christmas Elizabeth Christmas = Jeffery Paul Robert Carew. occurred, his valuable estate and fortune was divided between his M.P, 1715-47 of Paullsville, two brothers.-\(, Shapl

Robert Shapland Carew --- Eleanor Carew = Sir 10hn Newport M.P. 1803-32 M.P.1776-1800

Success at the polls was predicated upon the means through Whi~h . cd. u n the freeman body. These means frequent.y mfluence could be cx'hit t<> and exacerbated hostility within the counctl. " Henry Alcock to Aland Mason. 12 lan. 17-1-0 (P.RO.N./. ViJlers SlUart Papers, ·,Pda° T31311BISIl6). ealed the temper 0 f t e cnnUl .... , 1 . h ~:apland Carew after his success in 1769. for example: wu.s placed. fi.rm y~ " For the origins of the Carew'~ hold on the Ballinamona estate in County , 'nterest' seen as a defender of freeman s nghts havmg . Waterford, ~ee lulian Walton, 'The merchant community of Waterford in the poPdular I f om' the courts to confinn the claims of admission of many of htS sixteenth and seventeenth centuric~' in Butel and Cullen. Cilie,f mill Merc/wllts. pp. mUll amuses r 183-92. at p. 188.

26 27 lliS10l:1' StlIdit'~, 3/1001 Hisrory Swdies 31200 I

J7 followers. This assertion of civic rights eamed Shapland Carew high praise, "'"e "0 Dublin But whilst the rhetoric disavowcrl any ties to Pa,"y As a sympathetic print later remarked, 'the citizens of W

of its actual political content. de ence 0" c"',CO : marked pe,h,ps the defining principle in the minds of the was consls en "" d . h This paper has shown that a historically based definition of rights ruxl urban protestant polity of Waterford in the elghteent century. privileges derived primarily from royal charters characterised Waterford's parliamentary represcmation for much of the eighteenth century. Taking its cue from contemporary constitutional debates about the extent of Irish parliamentary rights the only foundation for civic freedom Was seen as the legalistic forms of COrporate privilege. Issues of rights and liberties were prominent in the rhetoric which underwrote the political representmion of the city. As the eighteenth eemury progressed candidates increasingly evoked the lTlotif of civic independence as a means of identifying themselves as worthy defenders of the corpomte traditions of Waterford. The politics of factionalism was rejected a~ contrary to the comrnonwcal and as incompatible with the language of civic p

'7 E.M. John.'ton (cd.). 'Members of the Irish parliament. 1784-5' in Proc. R,/A 71 (1971). sect. C. p. 170. A MwufulIJlIs. from Ihe Latin, 'to compel' was a legal writ • oblained from the court of King's Bench. which forced a corporation to accede to a " pelitioner's reque~t for freedom of a ~'orporate body. " WaterfiJrd Mirror 12 November 1806. '. S.J. Connolly, 'Precedent and Principle. the Patriots and Iheir Critics', idem, (cd.•, Po!ilica! Idt'W' ill £ighleemh Century Irefw/(! (Dublin, 2000), pp. 130-58. at p. 14S.

28 29 HislOlY Studies 3/2001 History SlIIdies 3/2001

Delirium and. Disease: The History of Masturbation work that it was especially the mcdical profession which generated such ID the Nmeteenth Century pessimistic conccpts with regard 10 'the solitary vicc' in particular. Returning to the opening quote, it was not masturbation in itself that Paul Montgomery perturbed the woman, after all she was ignorant of her actions, rather it was <;ocietal labelling of such an act that initiated the feelings of guilt in the woman. Thi~ I.ntroductioll essay is conccmed with the medical physicians who stimulated anl maintained such labelling which in turn did a disservice to their own profession, A mamed lady who is a leader in social purity For the medical profession, masturbation was regarded as a disea>;c,~ This is an n~ovcments and an enthusiast for sexual chastity, eloquent example of the value-laden nature of science in geneml and of medicine dt~vered. through reading some pamphlets against in particular. The task here will be to unravel Ihe~c values and give an accuratc sO,h,tary v.lce. that she herself had been practising account of the treatment of masturbation by medical physicians in this period. masturbatton for some years without knowing it. The profound anguish and hopeless despair of this The Rise of the I\'lasturbatory Hypothesis woman in the face of whm she believed to be the In order to understand the prevalcnt comprehcnsion ,md representation of human moml ruin ofher whole life cannot be described, I sexuality and sexual activity in the nineteenth century. it is necessary to :h~S ~acetio.us q~ote ~eveals comprehend the situation in the century that went before. Prior to the 1830s. much about societal atlitudes towards masturbation sex was viewed in a much more relaxed manner than what was to follow in the llil sexuality 1Il nllleteenth-century America and Europe Th h' t f sexuality has I be' . e IS ory 0 ensuing decades,l Even :l1llOng the highly conservative religious Puritans of ..a ways en 1Il a state of constant flux, I but from about 1800 to New England sex was seen as ·good'. Church and court records fully testify to l~ a negatIve rc~resentation llild understanding of human sexualit emer"'ed this fact. For example, numerous individuals were expelled from their churches whIch had not prevIOusly existed to the same de V' rYe. such a chan' ',. . .. gree, anous actors promoted llild punished for refusing to have sexual relations with their spouses.1> This ~ I~l h' ge at.utudes. Many accuse Chnstlanity among other constituents period also witnessed a peak in the popularity of what were called the Aristotle or t IS destructive Image of sexuality 2 This is of .. . th'. .. '. course true In part. However Books. These works described the sex organs in detail and expressed a very In .IS essay. we wdl dlscov~r Ihat another force in society was just as cuI abl~ positive attitude towards sexual intercourse, Coillls was described as healthy for and lllfluentml. as any other Institution for the d','Isapprovlllg sexual stereotypeP it promoted. ThIS was the medical profession. . 'it ea'>Cs and lightens the body. dears the mind, comforts the head and senses. and expels melancholy', For men it was necessary 'since sometimes through the F DcdekTh~ particul~r concern of this essay is the issue of masturbation. John 1 . nghtly ~lntS out that 'no other form of sexual activity has been omission of this act dimness of sight doth ensuc. and giddiness: In the more frequently dIscussed. more roundly condemned and mor . sixteenth and seventeenth centuries masturbation was often accepted as a way of practised than masturbation.'·l It will become apparcnt in the C:u:IV:;S;~~~ reducing excess semen. based on the principle of body harmony. By the early 1800s onanism was often a subject of obsessive concern, llild the masturbator

Ma~turbalion: : Weeks. Sexuality (New York. 1993). p. 21. • H, Tristralll Engelhardl. $1"1,. The Disease of Valucs and the Concept - Though from a much earlier period m' . h of Disease' Bullelill of tlte Hi;;ory ofMedicille .t8 (197.t). p. 23.t. th' [. I P' . . any pomt to I e trealment of masturbation 1 n ~ John Duffy. 'Sex, Society, Mcdicinc; A Historical Comment' in Earl E. Shell' (ed.). <: rlS 1 enllentwls. Among other activities such a' hi' b:~II~~~ity. a~HJ incest. masturbation is referred to as 'unna;~ral ~'~~~l~~:~i~n ~~~ct~:~i Sexua!iI)' (II111 Medidllc, Vol. 1/: Ethiwl Vit'U"!XlilltJ in Trtlll,\'ilio/l ( 1987). p. 69. r Ion. ce Hugh Connolly. The Imh Pel1itemi"ls (Dublin. 1995) p 81~85 6 Ibid. John F Dedek C . p.. . ., Ibid . . ,001lf'III{!Orarl' Sexual MOrt/IiIl'. (Ncw Yor k..1971) p...•.t.

31 30 I-IiSlorr Studies 31200} Histm:\, Studies 3/2001

A Closer Look: The Real Mcn behind the 'Madness' Thus far we have surveyed the broad view of events. but it is necessary to look closer at some of the incidents as they unfolded and at some of the prominent medicalligures who endorsed and promulgated the idea that masturbation caused both disease and madness. It is surprising tll.1l as early as 1700 a book under the l title O"al1ia appeared anonymously in Holland. " This work was met with great success but the negative sexual themes it sennoniscd only laid the foundations for what was to come in the nineteenth century. Numerous physicians began writing about masturbation in the 1830s. In 1831, for example, there appeared the first of a series of anti-masturbatory tracts in J.N. u Bolle's Soliwry Vie" Cotlsillered. However. the most inOuential impetus in bringing sexual activity to medical attention was the Lausanne physician S. A. Tissot (1718-1770). He taught that all sexual activity was dangerous because it caused blood to rush to the brain which in turn starved the nerves (making them more susceptible to damage) thereby increasing the likelihood of insanity.t~ Tissot also believed that for every ounce of seminal fluid lost its equivalent was forty ounces of blood. which had a debilitating effect on the body.l~ Moreover. since onanism was regarded as sinful from a biblical point of view. its moral character and the feelings of guiil it stimulated also affected the central nervous system (CNS).16 Though all sexual activity was debilitating, masturbation had a much greater devastating effect. Tissot's ideas were more inspired by religious pamphlcteering on the subject mther than any real scientific research. t1 Even though Tissot 1nl established the widely held medical opinion that masturbation was associated

Il Engelhardt, 'The Disease of Masturbation'. p. 235. 1I lbid.. p. 72. I' Ven! L. Bullough and Voght. Manha, 'Homosexuality and its Confusion with the 'Secret Sin' in Pre-Freudian America' Jmmla/ ofHistory of Allied Sdl'11Ce 28 (1973). pp. 143-155, at p, 146. I' Engelhardl. 'The Disease of Masturbation', p 235. '\6 In chapter thirty-eight Oflbc book of Genesis in the Old Testament. Qnan spilt : Weeks. Se.f. Politic~' and Sucietr. p. 49. his seed (sperm) by premature 'withdrawal or coi/lts interruplus, thus provoking the E.H. Hare. 'Masturbatory Insanity: Th H' anger of God. Though c(}il1l.~ il1lerrupllls is ethically different in characler and moral Mental Science 452 (1962), p. ll. e lstory of an Idea' in nil' Joumal of evaluation frolll masturbation, the two terms became synonymous with one another

10 [bid.. pp. 11-12. over the cou~e of timc. "Dff'u y, Sex. Soclcty.. Medicine'. p. 73. n Bullough and Voghl. 'Homosexuality and its Confusion'. p, 146fn9.

32 33 HiSlOrr Studies 312001 Hist()/y SrI/dies 3/2001

with serious physical and mental maladies. he was not alone in the propagalion menace to the future of civilisation:!4 Staying with France. Dcdek comments of these ideas. The American physician. Benjamin Rush. listed masturbation ill that French doctors during the nineteenth century were particularly worried about onc ~f the inciting causes of menial illness. He shared the general opinion of hi. an occupational ha7;m:l of seamstres~es. As they worked their sewing medICal colleagues that any sexual behaviour that did not result in procreation machines!s. the up :md down movements of their leg~ sometimes caused was hamlfullO the human constitution. lg orgasms. and in at least onc establishment a matron was appointed to circulate ,~~ Sylvester Graham in 1834 published what was 10 become one of the among the girls to watch for 'runaway machines' most innuential works of its day, The title itself is revealing of its content. 11 It was called Lee/lire to YOlmg Mel/ orl Chastity.") J. Milnc Chapman. a Oelirium and Disease physician from Edinburgh. published an article on masturbation in an American The moral offence of masturbation. as we have seen. was transfonned into a medical journal. After stating that all female masturbation was the cause of all dise:L-.e with somatic and psychological dimensions. So what did masturbation dise;t-.e in women, he concluded that masturbation was 'disgusting' and any actually cause according to physicians? From all the sources I have re.-.earched. study of it 'dista~teful',~1 Most of these medical journals provided a myriad of the following is a composite list of the diseases claimed to have been caused by examples of bodily problems apparently caused by immoderate sexual demands. the solitary vice. For the female first of all. thcre was a threat to her fertility aoo One.physician, for example. after observing two cases of diarrhoea in 'vigorous her capacity to bear children. There was also a possibility of cancer, insanity. men. both of whom had recently married. blamed their disorder on the excessive TB, frigidity. leucorrhea. and nymphomaniaY Moreover. the list continues for sexual requirements of their wives who were 'a little loose in their characters.'!! both sexes. Dyspepsia. constrictions of the urethra. epilepsy. blindness. vertigo. These ideas were also introduced into Europe as a result of a loss of hearing. headache. impotency. loss of memory. irregular action of the publication in London early in the nineleenth century. The book was entitled heart. general loss of health and strength. rickets and chronic catarrhal Ollallia, or the Heinous Sill of Self-PoUl/tiO/f.!] The main concern of the conjunctivitis. Very interestingly. nymphomania due to masturbation. it was anonymous author was that masturbation was bad for the whole person and was claimed. was lllore common in blondes than brunettes!:!lJ Freud. with his a common cause ofepilepsy. Claude-Francois Lallemand. professor of medicine particular interest in the mind. said that masturbation was a cause of neurosis.;>

34 35 His/OI:\' STUdies 312001 IIiSlOrv Studies 3/2001

tre,ltment of this subject in medical journals is the description of an 'insane spanking. late rising. pelting an~ indu.lgence. masturbator' unwilling to make any 'attempt at refonn·. He was an 'effeminate corsets, straining of the memory. erotIc rcadmg ard young man who carried a fan and did needlework.'" pictures, play solitude, perfumes, over eating. fondling, rocking chairs, pockets, feathered beds. 'And it Caused Him to Die!' horseback riding and bicydes.)4 Perhaps the most bartling conclusion of physicians in the nineteenth century was that masturbation could lead to death and there were cases where this The question of how 'masturbators' were labell~d as such .arises. If ~he medical judgement was drawn. In England, for example. a post-mortem examination profession concluded that masturbation was a. dL~ease. which they dId. then the from Binningham concluded that corollary to this was that there must be somattc sIgns and symptoms.

lmasturbation] seems to have acted upon the cord in Signs and Symptoms the same manner as repeated small haemorrhages Masturbation in the eighteenth and espeCially the n1l1eteenth century. was affect the brain, slowly sapping its energies. until it believed to produce a series of signs and symptoms.'~ With regard to the succumbed soon after the last application of the psychological characterisation of the ·mast.urbat.or·. Henry Maudsley in the exhausting innuence.,1 1860s developed the notion that mastubatory 1l1Salllty was demarcated by

In America. Alfred Hitchcock. writing for the Boston Medical and Surgical (i)ntense self-regard and conceit. extreme perversion lvumal in 1842. said that he himself had observed several fatal cases of of feeling and corresponding deranging of thought. prolonged masturbation. One particular case was that of a twemy-three-year-old and later by failure of intelligence. nocturnal man who died 'after six years of habitual masturbation:~J There were no hallucination. and suicidal and homicidal boundaries to the emergence of the hypothesis and henceforth in most medical propensities. all of which doomed the boy to social writing insanity. illness. and masturbation were inextricably linked together. disaster.lt>

Cause and Encouragement Furthermore. Lallemand emphasises the cold and callous nature of the If masturbation was the cause of these illnesses. then it begs the question. 'what 'masturbator'; causes masturbation?' G. Stanley Hall. the sponsor of Freud in America and an important force in psychology, listed the following contributory factors. He loves no onc. he has no other interests. he shows no emotion before the grandeur of nature or Spring and a general warm climate cncourage the beauties of art: still less is he capable of any masturbation. So too does improper clothes, rich generous impulse or act of loyally, he is dead to the food. indigestion. mental overwork, nervousness. call of his family, his country and humanity.-17 defective cleanliness. prolonged sitting or standing, monotonous walking. sitting cross-leggcd. "

'. [bid .. p. t51. 11 Bullough and Voghl. 'Homosexuality and its Confusion', p. 148, " Engclh;Irdt. 'The Disease of Masturbation'. p. 234. Jl Engclhardl. 'The Disease of Masturbation'. p. 240fn39. j. Weeks. Sex. Politics (l/ul Society. p. 50. " Bullough and Voghl. 'Homosexuality and its Confusion', pp. 1.J.7-148. II Hare. 'Masturbatory Insanity'. p.8.

36 37 His/OIY Studies 312001 His/ory Swdies 312001

Changes in the external genitalia were anributed to masturbation al~o, hospitals and boarding schools in Ireland, for example. imposed stringent Elongation of the clitoris, reddening and congestion of the labia majom preventative mcasures. Some ensured that the children slept wilh the~r hands elongation of the labia minora. and a thinning 1md decrea<;e in the size of the aoove the covers, for obvious reasons. A short dumtion of sleep was Imposed penis were all considered tell-talc signs.-'s Chronic masturbation was held to upon the children in the hope that tiredness would force. them to sleep lead to superficial veins in the hands and the fect, moist and clammy hands. immediately without ·distraction·. A healthy diel was also prescnbed. stooped shoulders. pale sallow face with heavy dark circles around the eyes. a "dmggy" gait. and acne, "From health and vigour. [they loose their neshj 1nl The Decline in the Hypothesis became pale and weak.·)Q An 'undesirable odour of the skin in women' was Belicf in the idea that masturbation could cause insanilY and disease ~iminish~d another indication.-w rapidly from the 1890s onward, The Freudian concept of .neurosls and Its relaledness to masturbation replaced the masturbatory hypotheSIS f~r abo~t .fo~y Prevention and Cure years. but it too declined. What were the reasons for this? Histonans dtffer 10 In the same way the doctors of the nineteenth century diagnosed diseases related their answers to this question but there are some common arguments. The to masturbation by their signs and symptoms. they also attempted to prevent 1920s brought a revolution in American morals and cullure. Europe was Sool~ to and cure the 'evil". The most interesting ease I came across was that of a follow. The First World War created a generation gap and al the same tIme physician who successfully treated an 18-year-old Irish girl of hiccups when he America tumed into a major industrial nation, The role of women .cam7to. Ihe learned that she was a rnasturbator.~' fore in public awareness and debate. and Ihis was to ~ave profound Impltcatlons If the Ihreat of disease was not enough to frighten people, then there for mcdicine.-l4 Also. masturbation went from belOg seen as a cause to a were physical sanctions to prevent masturbation. The devclopment of elaoorate symptom until eventually it was disassociated with di.sense ~d ins.anity machines and electrical equipment. which resJX)nded to erections or physically altogether. Another weakness in the mastt,lrbatory hy~theslS was It.S contmu~~ 4 prevented masturbation. have been well documcnted. ; Then there was also inability to offer satisfaclory physiological explanatIOns and eVidence. ~ recourse to circumcision or acupuncture of the testicles as a preventative. In sexual intercourse debilitale the person as well? Or if sperm was the major females, infibulation or putting a ring in the prepuce was used to make debililating factor. then how can we explain female mastllrbatio.n? These were masturbation painful. If this did not deter the wanton girl. some physicians like among the problems that a new understanding i.n huma~ phYSIOlogy brou~ht the British surgeon Baker Brown advocated

'! Engelhardl. 'The Disease of M;lS\urbation', p.236. ,. Ibid. ., ... Coteman. HUl/1all Sexuality. p. 308. " Duffy, ·Sex. Society. Medicine'. p. 75. " Week~. Sex. Potilin aI/(/ Society p. 50-51. " Engelhard!. 'Thc Di~easc of Masturbation'. p.244, Cr. Engclhardt. 'The Disease of .. Duffy. ·Sc:,;. Society. Medicine', p, 82. Masturbation'. p. 242f044. 41 Hare. 'Masturbatory Insanity'. p. 15.

38 39 Histon' Smdics 312001 History SlIIdie.\· 312()OI

Conclusion covered here. Inslitutions. whether ecclesiastical or secular. were dynamic a~alysis sugge~t ~lore L. P. Hartly grasped something of the truth of historiography when he said 'tll ingredients in this period. In the final ..the paradigm I as facto~ past is a foreign country: they do Ihings differently Ihere.''''' Our primaJ) accurate. is one that maintains a creative tensIOn between all the rnxI con~IOl~eratlOn endeavour here has been to visit the not too dislant past of the nineteenti institutions. Society in any age. is not one institution. but a of centUl}' and engage wilh the topic of how masturbation was perceived many constituents. Keeping this in mind is not optiona.l to htstoncal work. specifically by the medical profession. In this essay it has been illustrated Ih3 Rather. it is intrinsic and necessary 10 the nature of the subject. there was a relatively rapid rise and fall in the hypothesis that masturbatiOl caused both insanity and illness. " is quite clear that the medical profession cl the late eighteelllh and nineteenth century was the main proponent of this idea which had an all-pervasive impact on society. This societal effect was boil negative and destructive of a healthy understanding of human sexualit} physiology. and psychology. The physicians of this period assumed and usurpei a parental role in society. As Professor Plumb has put it. ·they [masturbators were 10 stay firmly in Eden. with their hands firmly off the apples and deaf w the serpents.'41 I have also illustrated the apparently factllal data of signs

•• Cited by John H. Arnold. History: A Very ShorT fmroduetioll (New York. 2000). p. 6. " Duffy. ·Sex. Society. Medicine'. p. 48.

40 41 . His/UT)' !:ill/dies 312001 HiSlotT S/IIdil's 312001

Myth, Memory and the Frolltkiimpfer of the Great War brother or a friend.' However. in November 1998, while Britain and France in German History* were commemorating the eightieth anniversary of the armistice which effectively ended the First World War. it was hardly mentioned in Gennany. Neil Jakob neither by the press nor by the govemment. Instead. Germany remembered the Reic!rskrislt/lITwclJt (the pogrom against the Jewish community sixty years Myth does not deny things. on the contrary. its ago) as a precursor to the events that followed during the Second World War. In Germany. the ballles of Verdun and the Somme in 1916 have been function is to talk about them: simply. it purifies eclipsed by the suffering and destruction of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad in them. it makes them innocent. it gives them a natural and eternal justification. it gives them a 19-12143. The two million German casualties of the First World War have been surpassed by the over seven million casualties. almost half of them civilians. clarity which is not that of ' (Cambridge. 1999). p. 17. I See Winter. Siles of Memory. p. 2. • Jay W~llter. ~ile.\· of Memo(\". SiTe.~ of MOllfTIil/g (CHmbridge. 1995). p. 227. • See Lallrcnee Moyer. Victory Musl Be Ours. Gennlllly ill the GreaT \Var. 1914- 1918 Jay Winter. The G/WIT lVar(J1/{1 ,he BriTish Peo/,Ie (London. 1986). p. 75. (London. 1995). p. 12.

42 43 His/m:\' Studies 3/200 lfis/m:I' Sludies 312001

Conventionul wisdom hus it that when war broke out durin" tilt for graming me the good fortune of being penniued to summc~ of !9 r4. it was greeted with enthusiasm by the majority of the live at this time.9 7 populatlOns In the belligerent countries. Instilled with a sense of national pride and. unity. of being the victim of foreign aggression. and of having to Mein Kampf has been described as ·the most notorious political tract of the defend a Just cause. millions of soldiers marched off to the front and possible twentieth century, a mixture of unreliable autobiography and half-baked ~cath, One of the best known photographs documenting the ·spirit of 1914', political philosophy· .10 However. within the context of this paper it is less l.e. the exuberance of the early months of the war. is one taken in Munich al important whether this infonnmion is accurate or not. The decisive issue here t~e ~gin~in~?f August. It is only one amongst many such scenes captured on is that this is how the experience was perceived and represented. hIm. Its slg~lflcance lies in the fact that arnidst the cheering crov.'d a 25 year The enthusiasm for war in 1914 seems to have been particularly great old Adolf J-htrer can been identilied. Hitler. living in Munich when war broke in Gennany. an indication for this are the 1.5 million war poems said to have out. enlisted in a Bavarian regiment and spent most of the following four years been written during the early months of the connict.lI However. the reactions as a corporal on .the western front. being wounded several times and receiving are most likely to have been more diverse than the traditional image urban the Iron Cross FIrst Class. He la!er wrote of the early days of the war in Ml'in responses suggest. The enthusiasm of the rural population for example is Kmlll)j: likely to have been somewhat dampened by concerns about harvesting the crops which were still in the fields. Nonetheless. Gennany was largely united The struggle of the year 1914 was not forced on the in its support for a struggle. which was seen to be a eonlinuation of the 1 masses - no. by the living god - it was dc.-;ired by national uprising of 1813 and the war of unification of 1870. " Thomas Mann the whole people. People wanted at length to put ,,-"'COgnised the ·age old Gennan struggle against the spirit of the west" I) and an end to the general uncertainty. Only thus can it concluded that ·[tloday there is only one honourable place. and that place is l~ be understood that more than two million Gennan before the cnemy.. The war was embraced as a national cause. and. although men and boys thronged to the colours for this Hitler's figure of two million volunteers is grossly exaggerated. the figure h~rdest of all struggles. prepared to defend the nag being closer 10 308.000 for 1914/15. the volunteer phenomenon is nonetheless With the last drop of their blood,~ a significant one in a country that already possessed a large conscript anny oflicered by professional soldiers. In a letter written to his parents on 3 August Of his own emotions he stated: 1914. a German student states that he is ·unfortunately still· in Leipzig but is exalted at having 'finally" received his orders to report the next day. He had met To me those hours seemed like a release from the painful feelings of my youth. Even today lHitler was writing in 19241 I am not ashamed to say that. • Ibid. overpowered by stomlY emhusiasm. I fell down on my 10 Ibid .. back cover. \1 See Michael Jeismann, Das Valer!alld der Feil/de. Swdiell ::;mJ IUlliOllalell knees and thanked Heaven from all overflowing heart Feilldbegrijf Imd Selbsll'er~riilldllis ill DeJITsch/rmd IIIIlI FralJkreich 1792-19/8 (Stuttgart. 1992). pp. 299~. ~ On the '~pirit of 1914'. scc ~effn:y Verhey. '''Der Gei~t von 1914"" in Rolf Spilker II See ibid.. pp. 301·309. and Bernd Ulnch (eds.). /Jer TOll al.\· !I1l/J'i"hi"isl. Der illdllslria!isierte Kl"ieg 1914. IJ Thomas Mann. BelrllchulIJgf!/1 dlles Ullpolilischell (1918: Frankfurt/Main. 19/8 (Bramschc. 1998). pp. 46-53. 1995). p. 40. 'Adolf Hitler. Mdn Kampf(1925; [ran~la[ed by Ralph Munheim. London. 1992). p. t> Thomas Mann. 'Gute Fclupost (1914)" in idem. Gesammelle Werke. Vol. XIII: 148. Nachtriigf! (Frankfurt/Main. (974). p. 526,

44 45 l-liSIOl:l' SlUdies 312001 Hi.I"fOl:r Sludies 31200

I a young lady cllrlier that day and had been 'embarr.l~sed' to be seen in 'civilian sacrifice and not the object of the sacrifice: '} This one sentence. written by a clothes' as ,he 'no longer belonged in the peal.:cful Leipzig: [n the 'changing 23 year old Gennan law student in a train on his way to the war in the wes!. atmosphere he has learned an important lesson l5 : probably comes closest to the fundamental meaning of. the war ex.peliet.lce as perceived during. and especially after. the war. The n~\lon ,of sacnfice l~ the When we think of our relatives and ourselves in service of the fatherland. king or whichever form the lmagmed eommumty or these ti mes. we become small and weak. When we highest reference point might take. was one already popular before the. war, in a think of our nation, the fatherland. God. everything world which was increasingly felt. especially by the younger generatton. to be around us. then we become l.:ourageous and materialistic, soul-killing. and 'modcm' in every other negative sense of the strong,l~ word.:» Thus. sacrifice. meaning the seltless. meaningful and hopefully glorious death for the common good, was the natural ~ only sentiment This young student. the embodiment of the 'spirit of 1914', believing in the capable of rationalising the carnage wimessed and attach1l1g some form of greatness of the struggle ahead and his dUly 10 play his part in it. was killed meaning to it. less than {WO momhs later during the Banle of the Marnc. War was seen as an opportunity to start afresh. to get away from the [r~ the I~tters ~ritten by (educated) Gennan soldiers early on in the stitling constntints and expectations of modem society.!1 A Gennan ~Idier war. the dtscusslons 01 the causes and aims of the contlict abound. Whereas welcomed the possibilities the war offered: '1 sec death and call out to llfe. I British soldiers genemlly restricted themselves to matter of fact statements that had accomplished little in my short life which was taken up by studies for the they are fighting in order that justice may prevail. Gennan writers identified most part. ·22 Thomas Mann wrote: cultural differences as the l.:auses and the maintenance of KlIltur. i.e. the unique German cultural tradition. as the main aim of the war. In the early months of How could the artist. the soldier within the artist th~ war. a Gennan soldier wrote from the western front: 'Poetry. art, not have thanked God for the collapse of a peace­ philosophy. culture are what the war is all about.'l) At the same time another time world that he was fed up with. thoroughly fed soldier was writing from the eastern front that '(w)e know full well that wc are up with! War! It was cleansing. liberation that we fighting for the Gennan idea in the world. th

46 47 Hisrul)' Srudies J1200 History Sftldies 312001

It was idealised as a valuable. character-building experience. and was seen the circumstances they found themselves in gradually became the meaning of almost as an integral part of human nature. War was regarded as having an the war. Hitler wrote: almost mythical. regenerating eflecl on the sou! and enabled the combmant to reflect upon himself and discover his true identity. In 1915 a Gemlan soldicr Thus it went on year after year; but the romancc of wrote: battle had been replaced by horror. The enthusiasm gmduaHy cooled and the exuberant joy was stifled One becomes strong. This life sweeps away by mortal fear. The time came when every man ~ violcnlly all weakness and sentimentality. One is to struggle between thc instinct of self-preservation put in chains, robbed of se[f-detennin

~. 'Letler of Gerhan Pa~tors. daled 16 April 1915' in Wilkop. Kriegsbriefe (1916). p. 50. Italics in the original. 11 Hiller. Mein Kalllf'f, p. 1St, _ II 'Letler of Fram: Blumenfeld. dated 24 September 19/4' in Wilkop. Kriefubrieft 10 On the 'spirit of the offG,n~ive·. sce Michael Howard, 'Men against Fire. (]918). p. 2. Expeclation~ of W;Jr in t914' in Illlt'rlUuimwl Sect/rit,\' 119 (1?84). pp. 41-57.. '" 'Letter of a German soldier from Switlcrlllnd, dated 1914' in Christilln Griinbcrg III 'Letter of Wahhcr Harich. dated 4 November 19t4' in WlIkop, Krlegshrlefe (cd.), Feldpostbriefe I'UI/ schll'ei:.er Dt'III.\'cflel1 (Zurich. 1916), p. 58. (I916). p. 4. " 'Letter of a Gcnnan soldicr from Switzerland. undated but 1915' in ibid.. pp. 132­ 133. " 'Letter of Lothar Diell. dated Novcmber 1914' in ibid.. p. 22. 'l 'LclterofGerhart Pastors. dated 7 October 1915' in ibid.. p. 114.

48 49 {-[is/ory Studies 312001 History Sflldie.~ 3/200

begi.n. to describe the impressions I have gained.'3., As the western front destructiveness these entailed. detennincd it be a defensive one..\/) The fossilised along a line running from Switzerland 10 Ihe English Channel. a T1e\\ adherence to the spirit of the offensive in an environment greatly favouring the defensivc. resulled in the enormous casualties that became one of the lasting eJcmcm ":as :.dbj to the t:aditional confusion of the battlefield: the deaUj' concentrallon of fire power In batTen killing zones which forced Ih . 0 legacies of the 'war to end all wars'. The GenTIan soldiers of the First World . e 0ppOSlne armIes ~nderground. In its new form. war had not been able to fultll the War werc confronted with a new kind of warfare. one which was 'different from expectatIOns placed in it in 1914: it was not the 'renewing' experience that was all Olher warfare men had hitherto eXlx:rienced' .J7 War as it transpired. could hoped for:·>4 not fulfil the expectations and hopes placed upon it. This became painfully clear from the outcome of the war. Despitc Instead of personal initiative and individual early successes in the war, the occupation of most of Belgium and Nonhern responsibility. there was the dulling endurance of Fmnce for four years, victory and ~ubstantial territorial gains in the cast. as the trenches. Instead of gaining an intensified well as a series of five offensives beginning in March 1918 which brought realization of the power of the spirit over maller, Gennan troops to within fifty miles of Paris, Genllany lost the war in they found matter crushing the spiri!. Instead of November 1918. However. Gcnnany had managed to terminate the war before escaping the soul-killing mechanism of mooem it rcached her own borders. and Gennan troops still occupied more than half of technological society. they learned that the tyranny Belgium and parts of Nonhem France when the war ended. The German amlY of technology ruled even more omnipotently in war wal> pennitted to march home in an orderly fashion and the soldiers were th~n in peace-time, The men who through daring welcomed back as undefeated heroes, The military high command. which had chIvalry had hoped 10 rescue their spiritual selves been de facIO running the country during the last two years of the war. from the domination of material and technological managed to turn over polilical control to a new revolutionary govemment forces discovered that in the modem war of material whose first task was to seek an armistice. All this gave rise to the 'stab-in-the­ the triumph of the machine over the individual IS back legend'. the idea that the Geffimn military had not been defeated in battle carried to its most extreme conclusions.-'5 but that it had been betrayed by politicians and civilians at home. This idea was to play an important role in Ihe politics of the inter-war period. the parties ~iJitarily. the, First Wor~d War!Tl:lrked the definite end of nineteenth cenlury that conslituted the pillars of the first Gennan republic were the ones who, in warfare. The central realtty of I1 was the growing discrepancy between the the eyes of many. had betmyed Gennany and robbed her of a deserved victory, Ill.ental and the technological battlefields,. between the perception of the way a Instead. Gennany had lost and W,L~ forced 10 accept a humilialing treaty dictmed w~r. ought. to be fought. and the rcaltty of modem industrialised warfare. by Ihe Allied powers at Versailles. Apart from the financial and lerritorial Military virtues - courage. honour. leadership - and traditional slrategies, losses this involved, the acceptance of the responsibility for the outbreak of Ihe ~Illed war to be .an offe~sive enterprise. However. recent technological war specified in the infamous 'war guilt clause', article 231. was seen to advances - the machme gun. nned barrels. exploding shells _ and the immense question the honour and integrily of the German nation as a whole:

-,

Jl 'Lelter of a Gcrman soldier from Switzerland. undat<.-d but 1914 or 1915' in GrUnberg, Feldpos/briefe. p. 109. '" See John Keegan. A NiS/(Jry of Wwflll"l' (1993: London, 199-1), pp. 347-366 and :: Sce Ulrich. 'De.sillusionicrung', pp. 116-117. Michacl Howard. Wur ;11 Ellrope{!IJ His/OI:\' (1976: Oxford and New York. 1993), pp. Hanna Hafl,;esbnnk. UnknOWIl Germa/lY. AI, Ill/ler Chrollirle of lite First IVorld War 9-1-131. htlsed OIl Lelters (//u/ Diuries (New Haven, 1948), pp. 65-66. 11 John Keegan. Tilt' Face ofBault' (1976: London. 1991). p. 306.

50 51 HislOnr SllIdies 3/2001 His/VI:\" S!lldie~' 31200

.~I The Allied and Ass(x:iated Governments affirm arK! trenches' Widespread disobedience :md even mutiny in OctoberlNovember Gernlany accepts the responsibility of Gernlany and 1918 support this conclusion. Furthermore. Fritz Fischer has shown that the notion of German war guilt was largely justified. with the Gcmlan government her allies for causing all the loss and damage to 42 which the Allied and Associated Governments lUxl pursuing an

<0 See Wilhelm Deist. ·Vcrd''''',o·M,·',·,·,··,·,·",·,·~~ ~. • n_ 1111 K·rlcgsJa. hr 19 18?' in Wetlc, Dellf.fch!mrd 19J4//8 (1961; Diisscldorf. 1994). esp. pp. 13-86. Krieg des kleillell Mwmes. pp. 146-167. .. Hitler, Mei/J Ktwrp/. p. 152.

52 53 HistDly Studies 3/200 History Studies 3/2001

The myth of Langemarck arose not from military success but from ... YOUlh, sacrifice. and idealism became the myth of Lan~el~arck.'~~ :-he zeal glorious defeat. After the 'mil"'.lcle of the Mame' when the Gennan advance 011 and enthusiasm of the young volunteers joyousl~ sac~ficlOg. their hves fo~ Paris was halted in September [914 and the Schlieffen plan disintegmted. the their Genllan fatherland while singing its anthem ~n theIr baptls~ ?f fire was German high command attempted to regain the initiative with the First Battlt the image of L

54 55 History Studies 3/2'-' HislOry SlUdie,j' 3/2001

radicaJly altered image and experience of the Froll/himpjer.'! The 'moden simply as an attempt 10 give an account of a generation that was de..<;troycd by 51 warrior of Verdun' was not the young. romantic and heroic figure cl the war _ even if they survived the shelling: Here Remarque utilised the Lungemarck, he was 'old. experienced, with no emotions and no ideal to image of the physically unscathed but psychologically scarred .or de~~yed idcnti~y wi~h'.~J This veteran lived within a microcosmic communitl veteran to emphasise his point. The insatiable monster of modem mdustnahsed established m.lh.e Iren:hes and his motivation to continue fighting arose n~ warfare not only devoured and mangled the dea.::l and maimed. but also scarred ~ut of romantic Images of glory. but out of a firm sense of duty. It was thi\ every soul it touched. Though all the protagonists in All Quiet are dea.::l by the llgure. and not Ihe student of Langemarck. that the soldier of the nexl world end of the novel. Remarquc returned to this themc of the disillusioned and war. trapped in Stalingrad or participating in the Holocaust. would be able to broken veteran in its 'sequel" Der Weg ::;uriick (193\). The genemtion returning relate to.S-! from the war had lost its ideals, beliefs and innocence 011 the Somme and at Verdun _ though the bcxIy remained intact. the soul was destroyed. Or. as The constructive. rather than destructive interpretation of the German soldiers' another pacifist writer summarised: 'Never again! Because: ''The only victor is fronlline ~xperienee as epitomised by the notions of sacrifice. sense of duty. dcatht"'5B and creutmg of a Volksgel/leillschajt (national community) out of the The meaning of the frontline experience of the First World War was a F~ollfgel~'~illscl/{[ft (community of the trenches). were incorporated into right. controversial topic throughout the brief existence of the Weimar Republic. wmg politIcal movements like the Stahlhelm. and most notably the National With opposing positive and negative interpretations. neither of which denied SOCta'1"1St Gen~an Workers Party." They were disseminated through a wide the horrors of the war. but simply drew different conclusions from the r.ln?e of officml. undo u~official histories of the war. as well as. through a experience. it had a significance far beyond the literary or artistic field and politics.~9 van~ty of l~lemolrs. dtanes. leners. and novels. which deall with the 'i mmortal played an important part in everyday However. when a fonner fie1?­ ~erolc achIevements of. th~ Gennan Army·.~ Of Ihe laller. Ernst JOnger's marshal appointed a fomler corporal to the position of Reichschancellor 111 Srorm of Steel (1920) With Its aesthetic and glorified description of war on the January 1933. it was the positive interpretation of the experience of the First weste.m front is possibly Ihe best known and most enduring. However. the World War. which won over its rejection. With the burning of Remarque's expenence of the war also resulted in a pacifist rejection of it. the most novels in May 1933 for his 'betrayal of the soldiers of the World War'w. the question of the meaning of the experience of the First World War had finally successful and famous example being Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet 0/1 the War We~·tem From (1929). which. ten years after its conclusion. caused a renewed (or at least until the post-Second World period) been settled in Germany. In 1961 the British Historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote that 'Gennany and highly volatile discussion of the meaning of the war. The dedication of All fought specificali in the Second World War to reverse the verdicl of the first Quiet Slates that it 'is intended neither as an aecusmion nor as a confession. but y

' ,. On the B:l1tle of Vcrdun. see Alistair Home. 171/' Price of Glor.... Verdll11 19/6 (1962: London. 1993). . n Erich Maria Rcmarque.11I1 WeslelllliclltS Nelles (1929: Cotognc, 1987). p. 5. Koppcn.·Kricg.~briefe II Bc~nd Hilppauf. 'Langernan:k. Verdun and Ihe Myth of a New Man in GernlallY after It £.dlcf gefallener Swdenten' Litemrische Well. 13-14/5 the Flfst World War' War mul Socit'1y. 2J 6 (1988), p. 96. (1929). p. 7. -\ .. j. Sec ibid .. pp_ 96-97. I"See Kun Sonlhcimcr. Al1lidemokratisches Denkell in der Weimarer Repllbltk. DIe "On t~e inn~cnee of Ihe experience of the First World War on Gaman political polilisclien ldeel1 deI demschen NatiollalislI1l1s zwiscl1ell 1918 lwd 1933 (1962: III ycurs c"//",, culture the• Il1ler-war • see Geor" L• Mno.',V3••• ,., L S0 //'(leI.\"., Res/WfJ111g' Ill'/ Munich. 1978). pp. 93-111. Memory oj Ihe World Wars (New York and Oxford. 1990). esp. ehs. 8 and 9. .... f'riillkisrller Kllrier. 12 May 1933. quoted in Modris Eksteins. '''All Quiet on the ," Wilhelm Zicglcr. Volk olme Fiillr/lI1g (Hamburg. 1938/39). p. 370. Weslcrn Fronl" and Ihe Fate oflhe War' lCH 15 (1980), p. 363.

56 57 !1is{m:1' Studies 31}()I. His/my 5/l1dies 312001

and destroy the seUlemcnt which followed it '61 Th h h' Education and the Catholic Church oversimplification f I. .' oug t IS may be :r: W Id o. a. co~np ex matter. 11 IS unquestionable that the Fil'Sl in the Irish Free State or War. and wuhm It especially the experience and im' FromkiimpJer. had a profound impact on Ihe inter-war politics ~nadg'h."Otf ~ John E. Duggan Gem' Th I' .

When the Irish Free State government came into power in 1922 it had as its major ally the Catholic Church. As a result. the intluence of the Catholic hierarchy pcnneated lllos)·l not all aspects of government. This intluence was no more keenly felt than in the area of education. The government consulled the hiemrchy in relation to the fornlUlation of education policies as well as the

"A.JP.. Taylor. 71,e GrigillS of /he Second World \Vur (1961'. 41. London. 1991). p. 1 CM/IO!ie Blll/etin. Editorial. 13 January 1923.

58 59 His!m:I' Studies 3/2001 History Studies 3/2001 implementation. of them. Even the changes in the ildministriltive structures undennine the influence which the Catholic Church wielded in the education within the Department of Education had the stamp of ilpproval from t1v: system. Catholic Church. In 1923 the department announced plans for the reorganisation of Under the British regime the Catholic Church vigorously opposed t1v: secondary education. As discussed elsewhere, schools were required to have proposed abolition of the National and hltemlediate Boards and their replacemell depanmental approval for their curriculum programmes. and the two State by a single education department. Yet it never objected to such il move in the examinations were introduced. The reorganisation also saw capitation grants event of self-government. so when it materialised there was no complaint from awarded independent ofexamination results, The Catholic Church welcomed all the Church. Its change of attitude was due to the realisation thilt the llell these and indeed other measures wholeheIrish language.'s inspection system. the principle object of which was 10 rank the effkiency d. The Catholic Church had little difficulty with the Department of the teacher in the primary sector. and evaluate the suitability of the subjects OIl Education's plans for the reorganisation of the primary school system. If there offcr in secondary schools. was an area where differences with the authorities had arisen in the past it was The Church's response 10 the administmtive changes instituted by the in relation to compulsory school attendance, Under the British, the Church government was very positive. The Church's main spokesman in the area d refused to cooperate with the Compulsory Education Act of 1892 and as such it education. The Reverend Timothy Corcoran made his views and the views d was rendered largely inoperative. D.H. Akenson pointed out that as far as the the Church well known through the medium of the Irish Month'" a publication Catholic Church was concerned, 'compulsion ran contrary to parental rights.'6 which was seen as the best guide to church reaction 10 educational changes an:! As a result. attendance at school remained very low in comparison to Britain. a initiatives. fact pointed out by the National Program Conference on Primary Education in Even before the Church made its views known on administrative 1921? Yet when the new State canle into being all objections to compulsory changes it acclaimed in July 1926 as an 'excellent choice' the appointment 01 attendance were withdmwn, and in June 1923 a meeting of the Catholic Clerical Joseph O' Neill as secretary of the Department of Education, a man who shared Managers Association agreed that 'the time had come for legislation in relation Corcoran's zeal for the revival of the Irish langu'lge.1 O'Neill wanted a to compulsory school anendance.'8 In 1924 the government announced that 'it minimum of ten hours of instruction in Irish per week in secondary school. He intended to introduce measures to improve school allendance.' a move :tpplauded 9 also maintained that the role of the State in education should be limited. a view by lhe Church's main spokesman the Rev, Corcoran. In 1926 the School which endeal\xi him to the Church. O'Neill was unashamedly catholic in his views and championed the right of the Catholic Church to be involved in • 'Notes on Current Educational Topics' [ri.I'1I Monlhly 603 (September1923). p. education. whi(,h led him to proclaim in a Studies article in 1949 "that un 426. education system, which has not religious conviction at the heal1 of it, is still l 'Notes on Currelll Educational Topics' [riI'll MomMy 613 (July 1924). p. 338. bom:l • D.H. Akenson, 'Education in Independent Ireland 1922-1960' in idem. (cd.), A Taking this statement into

, "Notes on Currcnt Educational Topics' Irish MOII/MI' 601 (July 1923), p. 316. Conference (1922). I Irish CmllOlic Directory 1924, p. 580. -' Joseph O·Neil!. 'Departmcnt of Educ

60 61 Hi.l·forr Studies 3/]()l History SlUdie.~ 3/2001

Attendance Act was passed and it won the approval of the people with tit Mac NeHI also acceded to the wishes of the clergy in relation 10 the question of exception ofsome farming interests. As a result of the Act. attendance figlllt: the amalgamation of small schools. When the management of these schools improved from 73.5% in 1924 to 82.7% in 1928. 10 objected 10 the plans on moral grounds he immediately cancelled them.\2 Under the British the questions of school attendance and lb At the end of 1925 Cosgravc was forced by MacNei[J"s resignation replacement of the National and Intennediate Bo:rrd~ by a single educati

62 63 HistOly Studies 3/100i HistOl:1' Swdies 31lIJ

more than willing to carry out its role as a minor partner in the area of anything in the nature of establishing a State education. The Church was allowed 10 dictate the tenns under which the children syst~m here, apart altogether from the higher point of the nation were to be educated and the government saw no reason 10 change of View of religion and morality, and even from the purely secular point of view. would mean that v.'C the statu.!> quo. Yet. pressure did come on the government from within the body would lose a great deal we are lucky in this politic 10 initiate change. most especially from the Labour Party. which country that we have a system that satisfies {he constantly argued for substantial State commitment to education. In 1923 T.1. 1cgitin1colleges and demanded an inquiry into the issue, hostile or even indifferent forces. o Sulllvan. whIle he admittcd that there were problems. was nOI prcp;tred !Q force an.y changes. The Slate. would. as far as the government was concerned. As it happened Corcomn's fears were unfounded as O'Sullivan dismissed OUI-of h,md the proposal of"lih advisory council claiming that it could not serve an: n~t use ItS powcr ~o dictate 10 the church. An inquiry would only be carried but WIth the .cooperat!on of the Church and needless 10 say no inquiry evcr toot useful purpose. \ place. WIth men like MacNeill and O'Sullivan at the helm. the Irish State was 11 PODE. vol.2, Col 548-555 (4 Jan 1923). I' 'Note~ on Currcnt Educational Topics' fri~'" MomMy 631 (January 1926). p. 675. :: PDDE. \'01.38. Col 1902 (27 May 1931). PDDE. \'01.16. Col 383 (71une (926). 10 Ibid.

65 64 History SIUt/ies J·2001 HiSlOrl' Studies 3/200j

the question ofjob security became a major concern for teachers. and believing Yet. despite the government's lack ofenthusiasm and the very overt hosti lity (j that an independent Irish government might be more sympathetic than the C~ur~h the towards it. the proposal did gain the support of both major tcaching previous British one, they drew up proposals regarding an appeals procedure in orgatllsatlOns. Indeed the I.N.T.O. llt its conference of 1928 called on tk April 1922. The teachers suggcsted two boards of appeal. one for Catholic al\1 govenuncnt to introduce a measure, which would provide for one for non~Catholic schools. each to consist of three representativcs of the headmasters. three of the teachers and an independent chainnan. The demands (a) A Council of Education to assist and advise the were then submitted to Professor MacNeill in October 1922. In the D{lil debate Minister in all educational matters. of that December he promised to misc the issue along with teachers (b) An Education Authority in each county mu remuneration with the religious orders. while at the same time acknowledging county borough whose main function shall be to that the position of teachers was unsatisfactory. However. he did ack.l that he make provision for adequate and suitable envisaged grave difficulties in trying to right the situation because most accommodation and the heating. cleaning am secondary schools were privatc institutions run by the religious orders. and as general upkecp and maintenance.!1 has been shown elsewhere. MacNeill was very reticent about introducing any new initiatives which would unduly upset the practises and principles of the The Catholic Church. through Corcoran reacted negatively and singled out the Catholic Church. He did approach the bishops on the question of an appeals prop?sed system of local education authorities for special comment maintaining tribunal on behalf of the teachers but his efforts yielded hull..' in the way of that II was 'a first move against the managerial system'.!! Corcoran went on to satisfaction, The bishops were detennined to prevent interference with their point out that the major difficulty with any proposed council was its schools and were as intransigent as ever. composition. He was particularly concerned that certain bodies 'neutral in their All in all the Catholic Church was very suspicious of the ~n~ght co.nst!tution'!] secure representation on the council and so 'challenge the government's plans to improve the work.ing conditions of the lay teachers. pmlclple of religIOUS education, a principle which the Church is ever and must believing that they might in some way interfere with the autonomy of schools be, ever on thc alert to defend.'!-l run by religious orders. In the February 1924 edition of the Irish MOlllhly, Yet. he did allow for compromise albeit on the Church's terms. He 1nl Reverend Corcoran threatened to 'go to court if the State aHernptcd to take over no re~l obj.ection to a council solely made up of those representing the various the educmion systel11:"~ In the same edition an article by 'sr entitled teachlllg Interests such as the Catholic Headmasters Association. the 'Catholic Secondary Teacher's Security of Tenure' completely rejected the ioca Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland, the Christian Brothers Education that a 'secular tribunal' should have any say in the appointment or dismissal of Co~ncil ~md other such groups.!.'i What the Catholic Church obviously tcachers. 27 He took this stance because Catholic secondary schools were enVisaged was a council. if it was to be set up. oc-dicated to the preservation of thoroughly private institutions established 'at the cost of great sacrifices aOO the status quo, that being an education system with a distinctly Catholic bias. often in spite of sufferings and dangers long before the Slate dreamt of assisting The issue of the status of the lay secondary teachers came 10 a real 2~ ag~in duri~g ~fter secondary education.' the .1920s. striking in i920. the teachers were only partly As a result lay teachers found themselves in a position where they satIsfied with the lllerease m salary which they had achieved. At the same time were unable 10 claim ~imi1ar remuneration and security of tenure as civil 1 ~: ·N.otes on CUlTl,'nt Educational Topics' Irisl! Momhf-" 660 (June 1928). p. 284. 1. 'Notes on Current Educational Topics' lri~'h MOIuhly 608 (February 192..J.). p. 57 . .. Ibid. pp. 284-285. 11 'sr. 'Catholic Secondary Teachers Security of Tenure' frixh MOIl/hly 608 'J 'Notes on Current Educational Topics' frish MomMy 673 (July 1929). p. 337-38. ,.. Ibid. (February 1924). " Ibid. 11 Ibid .. pp. 69-70.

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the generosity of the government. His and the government's attitude was such servants because quite simply they were not servants of the state. 'S]" went on thatlhe religious orders had the ultimate responsibility for those who Iaught in to point out that any change in the status would be resisted and their schools and in a startling statement he wel1l on to reiterate that apPMlch when he said of the teachers (m)orcover. these Catholic schools can never regard themselves as State schools. They do not owe their we are not really bound to consider their case more origin to the State: only a small part of their than we are bound 10 consider the case of an expenses is defr

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months notice of dismissal by his or her clerical manager. the latter should first of Independence, notably Bishop O'Dca of Galway. a man fluent in the Irish of all receive the assent of the bishop. When notice was served. the teacher 1nl language.J~ Teaching congregations like the Brothers of St. Palrick and the the right to offer a defence. TIle secondary headmasters were prepared to offer the Christian Brothers became synonymous with the ideal of Gaelic Ireland and its very samc system but under no circumstances would they countenance the emphasis on the Irish language. participation of the A.S.T.I. in the appeal procedure. Ecclesia.~tical support for the language revival had been forthcoming In 1927 the National Synod of Maynooth extended the provisions of since the beginning of the century. Even as early as 1900 the Catholic bishops the Maynooth Resolution to the secondary sector.'7 The teachers reluctantly urged that "Irish be taught in all primary schools where there was no parental decided to cooperate with it. until such time they could test the sincerity of their objection:J9 In 1910 the Central Council of Catholic Clerical Managers went employers. That time came ill 1931 when a female teacher in a County so far as to protest against the rule. which did not provide for the payment of Tipperary convem lost her job in order to make way for a member of the arm Irish instruction in the junior grade.-I(} By 1914 the managers were joining with managing the school. She appealed to the Archbishop of Cashel but he refused Ihe I.N.T.O. and Gaelic League 'in urging John Redrnond 10 suppon the to ovenurn the convent"s decision. Teachers occame convinced that no appeal position of the language in the national schools.. ~, procedure would be fair without the invol vement of their association. They were When the Irish Free State came into being the supportive attitude of further influenced by the failure of the governmel1\ 10 get involved in the issue. the Church continued with the chief spokesman Reverend Timothy Corcomn Even while aware of cases where blatant abuse was involved. the government playing a pivotal role in the shaping of education policy. Corcoran was a was unwilling to act. It was in many respects weak-kneed and weak-willed when champion of the Irish language and he very much inl1uenced the National it came 10 taking on the church on behalf of the teachers who were working Programme Conference on Primary Instmctioll and the Dail Commission on tirelessly to educate the nation's children. under what can only be described as Secondary Education. The very fact that he was allowed 10 exert such illfluence vcry difficult conditions. The failure of successive education ministers to epitomised the level of cooperation that existed between Church and State on confront Catholic Church authorities in any meaningful way in relation 10 their the revival issue, So powerful was Corcoran that he was able to give his stamp treatment of teachers was just another example of the powerful influence the ofapproval 10 the draconian measure of teaching infants entirely through Irish. hiemrchy exened over those in government. regardless of their mother tongue. Even the curriculum recommendations of the As discussed elsewhere. the major education initiative undertaken by D~il Commission on Secondary Education had the fingcrprints of Corcoran all the Cumann na nGaedhael government centred around the curricululll. Lreland over them. and one could discem that from the articles he wrote on cuniculum had just emerged from a revolutionary pericxl and the romantic-nationalist refoml in the Irish Monthly in 1923. In 1924 the Department of Education ideology of that period dictated that Irish cultural distinctiveness should be produced its syllabus for secondary schools and Reverend Corcoran gave it his fostered by the revival of the Irish language. not just taught as a subject. but unqualified approval when he wrote also used as a medium of instructioll. In order 10 achieve these aims the government needed the active cooperation of the Catholic clergy and that The framers of the new Intcrmediate programme are cooperation was very much forthcoming. 10 be cOllgmtulated on the resolute way in which As it transpired there was a great deal ofgoodwill shown on the part of they have followed the principles laid down by the the clergy towards the language revival. As it happened many bishops am Dail COIrrmission of a few years ago. and have priests were enamoured by the notion that Irish would once again become the .,

spoken language of the people. Indeed some of the great champions of (he 11 Irish Cmlw!ic DireclOn'. 1912. p. 509. language revival turned out to be men of the Church even before the Declaration "Irish Cmho!ic DireclOry. 1902, p.-I41. "'l/rish Catholic DireclOry. 1911. p. 502.

l) Concili Plcnuri Muynutiani MCMXYll. Arta et Deaeta. Stall/tt' 387, No.3. p. 117, 'I Irish Cot/rolic Directory. 1915. p. 499.

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Gacltacht area.,,4~ and so it was decided that a considemble number of places at given a distinctly Irish orientation to their whole 4 these ·preparJ.tory colleges' should be reserved for students from the lrish­ plan of studies. .l speaking areas of the country. The Reverend Professor. on behalf of the Church, welcomed the preparatory colleges but of course he did altach one important Corcoran, and by extension, the Church hierarchy were particularly pleased with the status afforded to the Irish language within the programme as well as the condition, which was Irish emphasis in history and geography. He also staunchly defended the that these colleges be under quite definitely imposition of the Irish language on the education system in the face of criticism from protestant headmasters. The catholic headmasters on the other religious administration that is, Catholic as far as Catholic pupils go. The day for forcing any inter­ hand were very much in favour of the new programme both in the primary

0: "Notes on Current Educational Topics' Irish MOlltlrl.\' 613 (July 1924). p. 358. 170. 01 Report of tile Departmem of EdllCt/fioll, 1927-28, p. 116. ., Akenson, Mirrur 011 Kathleelr's Fllce. pp. 119-134. " 'Notes on Current Educational Topics' Iri"," MO/rtlrly 646 (April 1927). p. 175 . .. Ibid.. pp. 46-47.

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and teachers and was able to call on the expertise of eminent foreign academics. cooperation? It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that here was just another The Church was not represcnted blll the Reverend Corcoran. on the b'lsis that instance of the awesome power which the Catholic Church wielded in the Free there was a grealneed for technical training. welcomed the establishment of the State and that the govemment was incapable of initiating and implementing a Commission. The Vocational schools were of course unaffiliated to any policy free from ecclesiastical innuence and supervision. One could argue that religious body. But how did the Church view them'? Catholic dogma was quite the Church deliberately supported the language policy in order 10 reduce the clear on the question of Catholic children atlending non-catholic schools, ::u"Ki likelihood of State involvement in the running of schools operJted by the many of the Church's hierarchy often referred to Canon 1374 of the code of religious orders. However. as pointed out earlier. there was much in the way of evidence to suggest that the Church supported the language revival long before Canon Law which stated that independence. One ofcourse could take the view that the Irish language sat very Catholic children may not attend non-Catholic. comfortably with the clerical way of thinking. Throughout the 1920s the neutral or mixed schools. that are those which are Catholic bishops comaantly railed against what ihey perteived to be over open also to non~CathOlics. it pertains exclusively indulgence in pleasure. They saw immodest dress. dances. films and literature. to the local bishop to decide. in accOrU.1tlCe with all imported. as being at the root of the problem. To the hierarchy. the Irish instructions of the Holy See_ under what language represented all that was pure. So much so that in Februal)' 1925. circumstances and with what precautions against Archbishop O'Donnell of Armagh announced that 'the Irish language was free the danger of perversion: attendance at such schools of any vulgarities and its promotion as the first language among the people may be tolerated.sf would act as a moral safeguard:49 Whether there was any truth in that assertion is of course arguable. but it was a genuinely held notion at that time, The Indeed the papal encyclical 'Divini lIlius Magistri' of 1929 was even more hierarchy clearly believed that the Irish language was a perfect barrier. protecting the peoplc and their minds from all the vulgarities that were rampant across the emphatic in relation 10 the issue world at thal time. We endorse and confirm the prescription of Canon One other area of Irish education where a potential for conflict between law which forbids Catholic children on any pretext Church and State lay was in the reform of the technical education system. It ha:! whatsoever 10 attend neutral or 'mixed schools'. been in existence since 1899. when the Department of Agriculture am that is to say schools open indiscriminately 10 Technical Instruction for Ireland was established. Under the system. local Catholics and non-Catholics alike: allowing government bodies fonned ·technical instruction committees' which oversaw atlendance in the case of these only at the discretion the management of 'technical schools' for instruction in tmdes and agriculture. of the Ordinary under certain circumstances. rn:d Technical education was financed by State grants and local rales and was the with special safeguards.3~ only sector within lrish education that was in lay control. When the Irish Frec State came into being the Cumann na nGaedheal It should be noted that the decrees of the Synod of Maynooth in 1929 made it governmcnt. through the Departmcnt of Education instigated a Commission 'to clear that Catholics. under pain of sin, could not attend non-Catholic primary or inquire into and advise upon the system of technical Education in relation to the lndustry.·~ secondary schools or Triil\ty College. requirements of Trade and However, the Reverend John C. Joy. SJ. writing in the Irish MUllthly The Commission comprised of representatives of employers. labour

II Quolcd in Ncil G. Closkey. Cmho/ic Viewpoim 011 Edllcmioll. p. 100. ,. Irish Cell/lONe Directory 1926. p. 559. II Pope Pius xi. Did"i lJIills Magis/ri. p. 38. '0 Report vfthe Departmellt of EducatiOlf. 1925-26. p. 69.

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the bishops had no reason to fear the expansion of the technical sector. A of November 1930. tempered that pronouncement when he stated that the new government unwilling 10 confront the power of the clergy once again vocational system was 10 be a different case. because the specialised nature of accommodated the Church's views and demands in relation to education. the instruction oflenxl excluded it from the general condcmnation. The Looking back over those ten or so years of Cumann na nGacdheal Maynooth decrees went on to point out that govemment there is no doubt that the dominant role of the Catholic Church in Irish education was well and truly preserved. Yet throughout those years there (w)here as the knowledge of cmfts ~Uld agriculture was that certain sense of apprehension on the pan of the Church authorities that is. in our opinion. useful and even necessary for the government might create a secular education system. As a rc~ult spokesmen our people. we judge it permissible that Catholic for the clergy often felt it was their duty to define the precise roles of both pupils in company with non-Catholics should Church and State in education. They belicved that the authority of the Church attcnd where such knowledge only. but not general was supreme in all matters, and the state had a limited function when il came 10 53 education. is provided. educating the children of Ireland. One such spokesman the Reverend E. Cahill. SJ. wrote in 1925 that when there was a clash of interest between Church and As it lUmed out the vocational sector W:IS not as secular as the legislation State in education the men of the cloth would alwuys triumph and establishing it seemed to suggest. The Church used its influence to broker a special agreement with the state to have denominational religious instruction as the church is the authentic ~Uld divinely offered in thc schools. a fact welcomed by Reverend Corcomn and Reverend Or. appointed teacher and judge of moral obligation :m1 Wigmorc of Fennoy.~ The Church found other ways of exerting its inl1uence duty. with power to decide such questions wilh on thc system. Priests were regularly co-opted onto local education commillees infallible authority. it is clear that the rulers of the and indeed wcre voted in as chairman. A consultation of Thom's Directory of State in such a conflict must, in the ultimate Ireland in 1929 would have infonned the reader that 'of fifty-nine technical resort. abide by the decision of the Church. In this instruction committees in the country. twenty-seven had Catholic pricsts as sense and to this extent, the civil power may be chainnen.'5l said to be subject to the Church, even in matters According to J.H. Whyte there was a more fundamental reason why the that do not appertain directly or solely to the sphere Catholic Church readily agreed 10 the expansion of the tcchnical sector in Irish of religion or morals. Examples of this kind would education. During his research he was assured by an anonymous informcr that be education: the opportunity of public holidays; the then Minister for Education. Professor O'Sullivan had given the bishops a laws relating to maITiage.~7 guamnlec that 'the vocational schools would not encroach upon the exclusive prerog:\tives of the clerically controlled secondary schools"~ In essence the What the Church was claiming in relation 10 education was quite simply the Catholic Church had secured a guarantee that thc education of the social urn maximum independence for its schools. In 1927 the cleric who chaired the political clite of the country would remain finnly in its hands. This meant that Second National Program Conference defended the State's educational role. ·as that of assisting privatel)' owned schools.'5x He went on to point out that " 'Notes on Current Educational Topic~' Ir;'I'1! Momlr/y 689 (November 1930), pp. '- , 551-552. " Reverend E. Cahil!. 'Notes on Christian Sociology, The Church and State' Irish »/rish CllIl10lic's Dire('100' T. The CarllO/ic Schools of 1932. p. 571 ;Illd Corcoran. MOIl/hly 626 (August 1975). p. 417. {re/al/d, p. 5. II Reverend Lambert McKenna. 'States Rights in Edllcatioll' Stlldies 16 (Autumn ~J J.H. Whyte. CJrurch mul Swte ill Modem Ire/mid, 1923-70 (Dublin, 1980). p. 38. 1927). p. 221. J. Ibid.

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Umis of course was extremc in his views. Othcr Church spokesmen likc financial aid from the State was acceptable, evcn neccssary, but should be given Corcoran did not share his opinions. He, though a champion of the independent without preconditions: '(t)he Conferring of money by the State brings with it school tradition, had no real opposition to State examinations. However. no right to settle. independently of parents, the nature of the education given.'59 despite any differences that may have existed between Churchmen. they agreed He was also quick to indicate that there was no reason whatsoever for on one basic principlc. that Statc interference in the operation of Catholic the State to inspect the clerically managed schools. There was. he maintaincd. schools, especially at secondary levcl should be maintaincd at an absolute no reason to imagine that 'a child of ordinary middle class folk. attending a first minimum. class private school. is being imperfectly educated:('o(l Here we have another Throughout the tenn of the Cumann na llGaedheal government there cxample of the Church. through one of its spokesmen, guarding its were occasions when church spokesmcn felt obliged to question the role of the independence in relation to education. state in education but on the whole the Church was more than comfonable with More extreme examples of churchmen upholding that cherished the educational policies W.T. Cosgrave and his cabinet colleagues pursued. The independence can be found. One of the more intransigent champions of the satisfaction of the Church authorities was perfectly illustmtcd by Bishop private school tradition was N. Umis, a contributor to the Jesuit sponsored Fogany of Killaloe in a speech delivered in SI. Flannan's College, Ennis. in journal. the Irish MOllthly. He went so far as to proclaim that the State December 1924. when he said that the change. which had recently taken place in examinations interfered excessively with the freedom of secondary schools. He Irish education. was a 'blessed and splendid onc·.63 He had. he said. noticed a argued that 'official education authorities' were not competent to judge the drift away from the Catholic ideals - girls were actually smoking in public. for educational work of a school :md that the teaching orders of the Church over example _ but he hoped that under the new system ofeducation ·the Irish would M centuries had petfected their own methods of teaching [md leaming and wcre be brought back and safely moored again in the harbour of Irish faith: Two bl surely the best judges of these things. As far as Umis was concerned the years later, while speaking at the same vcnue, he went on 10 say State's role in education was a limited one. He was also at odds with Anicle 10 of lhe Free State Constitution which stated that '('1)11 citizens of the Free State I heartily belicve myself that our present system of have the right to clementary education: Referring to the very same anic1e 10 in secondary education is second 10 none in Europe or a piece which he wrote for the Irish Monthly in 1929. he maintained th:lt anywhere else. and is an infinite credit 10 our enlightened govemment that fonnulated i\. It has (tjhe whole anicle smclls a littlc of State done away with the steeplechase methods of the old omnipotcnce: it scems to be based on the idea that Intennediate which in my opinion, did a world of cducation is primarily a matter for the State. and if harm in its day to the national psychology. and has the State gives free education it has the right 10 given us in its stead a system which. while give whatever sort ofeducation it likes a pemicious guaranteeing stern efficiency in the schools. leaves bc idea. utterly at variance with right reason. a place for the development of character as well as intelligence. for culturc as well as science, and for the spir!tu.al ideals without which education often does mor'e~hann than good,M ,. Ibid .. p. 229. , "" Ibid .. p. 227. .1 p. N. Ulllis. 'Freedom for Secondary Schools' Irish Mrmrlrly 671 (May 1929). 245- tl Irish Catholic. 27 December 1924. 246. .. Ibid. 'What'~ _: N. Umis. Wrong with the Secondary System' Irish Mrlllthly 674 (August •, Irish Catholic Directorv t928. p. 558. (929). p. 408.

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Paddy on the Screen: Reactions to Cinematic The National Synod of Maynooth in the main endorsed Fogarty's views in a Representations of Ireland pastoral letter issued in 1927 when they pointed out that Patrick Farrelly (t)he education for a Christian people is erlucalion penneated by religion. In Ireland however. we have In his seminal book Understallding Media: The Extensions of Mall. Marshall had to make the most of systems that in theory fall McLuhan. discussing the myth of Narcissus. makes the point that the far short of the ideal. Education on an cautionary fable fun(,tions as an effective metaphor for the technological age of undenominational basis involves certain restrictions mass media. Pointing out that the word 'narcissus' comes from the Greek on religious tcaching. But for years past. in pr.lctise Ilarcosis or 'numbness'. McLuhan observed '(t)he point of this myth is the fact the character of our primary. as of our second'lf)' that men at once become fascinated by any extension of themselves in any schools. from a religious point of view. depends material other than themselves: I In tenns of lreland's experiences with the mainly upon ourselves. and there is no ground for cinematic medium, this would seem to present a very useful working metaphor. complaint in the greater part of Ireland.M In the early days of cinema in Ireland local showmen, like the Horgan brothers in Cork. often attracted packed houses to their shows by filming local scenes 11 is clear from the many pronouncements that the Catholic Church authorities and events.2 The attraction of seeing oneself on the silver screen held a were pleased with the Free State government's education policies. The compelling fascination for many Irish people. Irish Limelight reported in 1917 government never attempted to undennine or reduce the role of the Church in that when Norman Whitten captured on film actuality footage of the return of the education of the nation's children. If anything. by implementing the Sinn FCin prisoners from incarceration in Britain that policies which it did. it re-enforced the influence of the clergy in Irish education. The Catholic Church was accepted by the government as being the dominant some of the ex-prisoners and their friends could not clement in the church-state partnership which managed the Irish education resist the temptation to see themselves 'in the system. Throughout the term of the Cumann na nGaedheal govemment. pictures', and a contingent marched up to the education remained a relatively uncontentious issue between it and the Catholic Rotunda early in the afternoon. They cheerfully Church. Any fears that the bishops may have had in 1922 about the possible occeded to the geneml manager" s request that they secularisation of the education system were quickly dispelled. Once the Catholic should leave their flags in the porch. and. when Church became convinced that its independence in relalion to Irish education inside, gave every indication of enjoying not only was not likely to be undennined by those sitting around the cabinet table. the 'their own film' but the rest of the programme.3 country was set fair for an extended period of harmony in the church-state partnership which managed the Irish education system during the Cumann na By extension, films set in Ireland or portraying Irish stories. scenes or nGaedheal years of office. characters. have also attracted much attention in Ireland. The fact that the ...:, " •• Quoted by the Reverend M. Tynan in 'General Review of Educalion in Ireland' Ltlmen Vitae 4/2 (1941), p. 386. Marshall McLuhan. UI/(Iers/(mdillg Media: Tile Ex/ellsions of Mall (Cambridge/Mass. 1997). p. 170, I Memories ill Foctls RTE Television. J Irish Limeligh/ July 1917.

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majority of these films over the years have been made by foreigners scems to that would over the years be a recurring motif of commentaries on lrish-themed have.db:! an extra touch of intensity to their rel.:eption in Ireland. Margaret films. O'Callaghan. eOlllmcl1\ing on a statcment issued by the bishops ard Irish themes and setting were to prove extremely popular with archbishops of Ireland in OclOber 1925, remarked: Hollywood film producers, largely perhaps because of the vast numbers of lrish­ Americans living in the United States. Indeed Hollywood made more films It is undeniable that in their preoccupation with the about the Irish than about any other ethnic minority. The nostalgia of much of "rank' of Irish people in heaven, and thc 'namc' of the lrish-American community for 'the ould soo', perhaps more marked among Irish people on earth they displayed an llltense first and second generation Irish. in pan, perhaps, also explains the tendency of concern for the good opinion of others.J these films 10 portray Irish characters in a mther stylised fashion: in short, to provide the long-established stage-Irishman with a new celluloid medium. The Irish people in general. and it is a trait that in many ways endures. seem 10 In the early days of cinema. when movie content and lOne were still have a powerful interest in how they are perceived and portraycd by outsiders: an very much deriv:ltive of music-hall fare. short films abounded with ethnic interest that appears to have been greatly heightened by the immediacy ard themes which often utilised national stereotypes as the surest route 10 easy visual nalUre of the cinematic medium. laughs. The image of the drunken. brawling Paddy was onc that provoked In 1910 American director Sidney Oleott. who worked for the Kalem extreme anger among sections of the Irish community in the United States. Company, made a film in Killamey. Co. Kerry. entitled The Uld from OM especially given that in the early years of the twentieth century in America. the Irish were moving up the social l:idder and out to the suburbs, The Ancient Irefmu!, widely believed to be the first American movie to be made on location Order of Hibernians was at the vanguard of most protests against perceived slurs in a foreign country. The I"ilm proved such a success that subsequently a full against Ireland's honour. A largely unsuccessful boycott of the Abbey The:.l\rc's Kalcm film crew :lccornpunied 01cott back 10 Kerry and in the picturesque tour of America in 1912 was attempted. their representations of Ireland and the village of Beaufort, around twenty films were completed in a relatively short Irish being found to be lacking in the required reverence. space of time with many locals taking small parts. Not everyone in Beaufort In 1927 MGM released a film, The Ca[{alulIIJ ant! the Mllrphys which was so enthusiastic 'lbout the American filmmakers. In 1976 Robert Vignola. provoked howls of protest from the Irish-American community. The film, a an actor and assistant director with Oleott's film unit. gave a radio interview to familiar mix of drinking and donnybrooks. was cancelled in numerous cities Prionsias 6 Conluain, Vignola relates how the local-parish priest at Sunday and. when exhibited in New York, was the scene of violent and p.lssionate mass castigated the intruders from the pulpiL The priest accused Qleott and his protests. Another influential Irish-American organisation, the Knights of company of being "tramp pholOgraphers there to degr.lde the Irish ,., of Columbus. spearheaded the protests in Boston. and MGM were obliged to cut taking pictures of poor thatched roof homes instead of photographing the new the most offensive portions of the film before it could be shown, The campaign modern buildings they have in Ireland: Warning the people not to let them film against the film. which was, as the studio defensively pointed ouL actually their homes the priest urged that the filmmakers should be 'driven out of town made by an Irishman, Eddie Mannix. ensured, as Joseph Curran claims. 'that no by them all getting together with sticks and stones and chasing [them] across more films as offensive as The Caf{a/wl/s allt! tile MlIl"ph.u would be prodUCl.""d the Beaufon Bridge." This parish priest. although later overruled and transferred studio.:~~ by the bishop of the diocese, was perhaps the first to voice concern with the by MGM or any other ~sertion, verisimilitude of a representation of lrish life on the cinema screen. a concern Notwithstanding this Irish opinion nevertheless. regularly took offence at the representations of Ireland and the Irish in many American

• Margaret OTallaghan, 'Religion and Identity' in Cnllle Bag 1983. • Joscph M Curran, Hibemion Greell 011 the Silver S,reen (Connecticut. 1989), p. ~ MI'II/oriel' ill FocIO'. 35.

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productions. Organs of national and ecclesiastical opinion resJXlnded with Censorship: 10 The Shamrock and the Rose was similarly dismissed: 'I think predictable prickliness to Irish caricatures in Hollywood movies. The Irish we in Ireland should stop, at least in our own land, the exhibition of offensive Catholic in 1937 raged: stage-lrish productions. '11 The contradictions in Montgomery's pronouncements graphically Ireland has been and is apparently still content to highlight the completely arbitrary powers of the film censor. If one is to take remain the dumping ground for the rubbish arK! the 1923 legislation at its word then official film censorship policy in Ireland anti-Christian poison that nows in a constant classified stage-Irish productions as ·indecent. obscene or blasphemous.' or stream from the majority of American and British 'subversive of public morality.'l! Montgomery admitted as much in his studios Just now. Irish themes and Irish rejection of Abie 's iri.\h Rose in 1929: 'Thi~ ~tage lri~h1Jewi~h production is backgrounds are very JXlpular with alien producers. subversive of public morality as it is likely to offend and in name religious aOO bm. as in the days of the abominable JXlstcard- and racial susceptibilities.'13 Abie's Iri.\·" Rose, directed by Victor Fleming, was an stage-Irishman. the themes employed are seldom if ex.emplar of a JXlpular genre in Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s - gentle ever in keeping with the true spirit of Ireland.? romantic comedies which functioned as parables of assimilation for multi-racial American society. Another example C/al1cy's Kosher Wedding also provoked Such 'alien' productions also provoked the ire of the National Film Censor, the ire of Ireland's film censor: 'This is the type of thing we had on the stage James Montgomery. In 1927 Montgomery remarked of a film Oll1side of when the b..boon-faced Irishman was aCl'Cpted without protest. The fighting Pllradise: Irish clown is being revived in Hollywood. I cenainly won't pass films which hold us up to ridicule and contempt. 'I~ I regret that the (1923 Film Censorship] Act does In his role as film censor James Momgomery effectively abrogated to not give me the (Xlwer to reject insults to Ireland. himself the JXlwer to decide what was, and more often what was not. a If so. I could deal with this vulgar libel if I legitimate portmyal of Ireland and Irish characters on the screen. The Wardour were a member of an audience where the exhibitor studio's silent production of Liam 0 Flaherty's The Informer was rejected s had [theJ temerity to show it, I know what ["d do. emphatically by Montgomery:

In [928, railing against a short film. /reland Ynterday and Today, This sordid show of Chicago gun men. prostitutes Montgomery lamented ,[ have no (Xlwer under the [1923J Act to refuse a and armed police in the standard slum of movieland certificate to stage-Irish representations of our people and I issue one in this is offered as a realistic picture of the underworld of instance with great reluctance.'9 Notwithstanding this acknowledgement of the Dublin. It would be funny if it was not limitations of the legislation, Montgomery nevertheless succeeded in banning mischievous. I refuse 10 issue a certificate for the another film. Finnegal/'s Ball, with the comment: 'I will not pass films which exhibition of such a libellous distortion,l~ hold the Irish up to ridicule and contempt as coarse, vulgar. quarrelsome clowns. I consider it an impertinence to present this tmvesty for the certificate of an Irish -, ", 10 NA FCO 2 98/27/1. 11 Ibid. 7 Irish Catholic February 1937. Il Censorship of Films Act 1923. 8 James P. O·ConnoT. 'Censorship of Films I89-l-1970' (University College I] N.A, FC02 98/27/5. Dublin. M.A.Thesis. 1996). p. 213. I' NA FC0298/271. • National Archive FC02 98/27/3. I] NA FC02 98/27/5.

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nominated subsequently by Mary Manning in the Irish Statesmall for an 'international prize ... for worst film ever made' was the occasion for passionate Five years later John Ford's Oscar-winning remake of The Illformer fared little protests. Rockett fC(Xlrds how '(o)n the first night a group of National better with Montgomery: University students and others. including a future President of Ireland. Cearbhall 6 Da1:tigh. actor Cyril Cusack and Liam O'Leary rushed into the cinema. They A sordid brutal travesty of the Black and Tan drowned out the sound of the film with cries of Take it off .md 'It's an insult'. period. The prostitute and brothel tone which is The filnt was stopped and the Savoy's general manager. an Englishman, F. given to the struggle is offensive and untrue. The KnOIt, came on stage. He complained that the demonstr..ltors had broken into the production is very clever and artistic but it is unfit ~in~m~ but they retorted that he had broken inlO the country.'rs It is perhaps an for exhibition in this country. The issue of a cert llldteat~o~ of the symbiotic interpenetration of national identity and by this censorship might be taken as the State's Cathohclsm. a long-established truism of historiographical writing on the Irish approval of a gross libe1. 16 Free State that these protests met with the complete approval of the Catholic press. The CmJlOlic Mind opined that Clearly Montgomery believed that there cxisted a state-approved and petrified model of b-eland and Irish history. and that it was his duty as representative of (l)he manager of the Savoy cinema in announcing the state to ensure that no alternate visions were allowed to permeate into the the withdrawal of the film Smiling Irish Eyes. Irish consciousness through the cinema screen. Defending the hermeneutic gates expressed the opinion that it would have been better against national slander often led Montgomery into bizarrely farcical silUatiom. if the young man who protested against it in the The big-budget biopic of Charles Stuart Parnell starring Ciark Gable and Myma theatre on February I 1 had made private Lay enraged the censor: representations concerning it. Wc. on the other hand. are of opinion that these yOllng man dealt 19 This is a historical travesty in more than a facial with the maller as they ought 10 have done. [sicl sense. Unfortunately the Act does not provide for such outrages on the feelings of the Irish Thedepictioll of Ireland and the Irish in a screen adaptation of Sean O'Casey's people. but it does provide for the rejection of films play. Jt/1JO lIltd the Pay('ock. also provoked widespread protests around the justifying divorce and bigamy·. and I avail myself country. In Limerick. men were instructed from the pulpit not 10 patronise the 17 of it with gratitude. film and to ensure that their children did not see it. The rear entrance of the Athenaeum Hall where the film was being shown in the city was forced and a ~ That many Hollywood movies set in Ireland or dealing with Irish themes number of men seized part of the film. A large crowd subsequently watched the characters wcre. in fact. seen as national blasphemy was clearly a point of view film being publicly burned in Catherine StreeL~) approved of wholeheartcdly by many influential sections of Irish society. In A less hysterical consideration of stage-Irish representations on the 1930 lll1 exhibition in the Savoy Cinema. Dublin. of a film Smiling lris" Eyes. cinema screen is providoo..by the Irish Cm!lolic's film critic. Fr. T.J.M. • 11 Kevin Rockell. ·History. Politics and Irish Cinema'. in Kevin Rockett, lohn Hill 1. N.A. FCOl 98f2712. • Montgomery had reluctantly passed tht: MGM film. 77re Grl.'(l/ Ziegfield. in 1936 and Luke Gibbons (eds.). Cinema and Ire/mul (Kt:nt. 1987). p. 55. because the divorce and remarriage of the eponymous hero was a historical fact. It Cllt/lOlic Mind March 1930. Such eonsidcrmions obviollsly cut not ice Wht:ll it came to Pamell. ~~ Iri.\"1J IIrde"endellt [2 November 1930. n National Archive FCOl 98f27f15. 87 86 -----I History Swdies 3/2001 History S/lldies 3/2001

was being made. lent some assistance to the film crew. saw both goOO and I:oJ Sheehy. Reviewing the movie hish HearTS. Sheehy acknowledged that the film in the finished product. He praised the emphasis 011 Catholic life and on 'was definitely polite 10 us' but went on 10 observe: Ireland's recently won independence. The 'stress on the problem of partition and our attitude to it" was commended but the general depiction of the countryside It appears that Ireland. as presented on the film and lrish agricullUre exasperated Sheehy: screen. will always be caricatured. Sometimes the caricature will be offensive: sometimes as in this I suppose the Americans want the misty bog-road. case. it will be just mildly amusing; but it will the side-car. the old-fashioned scythes. the vista of always be caricature. because it is only as caricature SlOne walls. the spinning wheel and the jXIverty­ thal Ireland has any value 10 Hollywood or 11 stricken poetic people and a country fifty years oul Elstree. of date. Some day they will learn that we have electricity and even reapers and binders and that Sheehy. an indefatigable champion of a native Irish film industry. regarded lrish­ time marches 011 in Ireland as well as in the made films. even if they were just shorts. as urgently necessary to 'leaven the States.16 destructive dough' of Hollywood.11 He regarded stage-Irish Hollywood films, no matter how inoffensive on the surface. as a very serious issue: Anger at the failure of moving pictures about Ireland to portray the manifestations of modernity and technological advance in the country is A nation's prestige and voice in international affairs something we have seen as early as the 1910s from the Beaufort parish priest is small if it has no sympathetic or enlightened who denounced the filming of thatched COllages while new. modem slate-roofed foreign general public 10 appeal to. Films will houses were ignored. As the Irish Press observed some thirty years later: successfully eliminate Ireland as a reality in the 'Because RKO Radio trumpets the orders. the typical Irish farmhouse is the minds of most general publics. as she becomes a 1 mudwalled cabin and any broth of bhoy wOllh his salt talks with the Ilyaaah in joke rather than a nation. .1 his voice.' 17 The first thirty years of Irish independence are widely depicted by In 1944 a documentary film about Ireland was released as part of the March of conventional historiography as all era in which. ideologically speaking. the Tillle series. The his" QuesTioll and its representations of Ireland provoked a hierarchies ofchurch and state were in active retreat from the imperatives of the goOO deal of indignant controversy. At Ihe Fianna Fail Ard Fheis. Captain G. modem. industrialised world, De Valem's over-quoted 'comedy maidens' homily O'Gonmm Quin denounced the film as '(a)n anti-Irish American caricature was delivered on SI. Patrick's Day 1943, just the year before the controversial showing us as an ignorant. illiterate lot of poets and fools.. "~ The Irish Press, March of rim!' film. Moreover de Valera's SI. Patrick's Day addres,ses. of reviewing the film. caustically observed that '(i)t was all there almost 10 the which the 1943 version provided the epitome of Irish Arcadian caricature. were pig-in-the-parlour and the chickcns-in-the-bed, Time marches on? Anywhere ostensibly designed to utilise the medium of radio 'to speak to our kinsfolk in except in the Green Isle of Erin.'2S TJ.M. Sheehy. who had. when the film foreign lands. particularly'thQse in the United States. and to tell them. year by year of the progress being mJde towards building up the Ireland of their dreams " Irish Cmho/it- 22 June 1944. "Irish C(ltholic. 24 Augu~t 1944. '.1 Irish C{lIllOlie. 22 June 1944. "Irish Cmholic 7 Scptember 1944. ,. Irisll Ca/holic. 19 October 1944. l'lrish Press 4 Septcmber 1944. "Irish Prl!H 4 S~ptembcr 194-1.

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bursting into song and missing trains, are to my and ours: 2S In this context it is interesting to observe. in terms of the mind more likeable than their counterparts on the cinematic medium. the indignation which bucolic, pre-modern representations of screens of other countries.'32 Ireland provoked among Irish politicians. churchmen and commentatorS. 1be question may well be posed: Just who was caricaturing who? .' Notwithstanding his rather personalised enumeration of the idiosyncrasies of the Over the decades that followed. the sporadic appearance of diche-ndden typical stage-Irishman. Killanin's opinion proves particularly revealing when Hollywood or British films dealing with Ireland would invariably provide .the one explores the box-office reception of such films in Ireland. Paradoxically for opportunity to repeat calls for a greater commitment to nntive film productIOn. films that provoked such apoplexy among Irish commentators. they invariably Patrick Kavanagh predicted in 1948 that ·the first real Irish film will show up proved enonnous box-office hits in Ireland. Film magazine monthly. Tire all this fake Irish slUff.'~9 While TJ.M. Shechy expressed the hope that false Screen, was puzzled: pictures of Ireland

may wake the ordinary people up and bring home Film critics are constantly lamenting how foreign­ to them the necessity for an Irish film industry. We made pictures with Irish themes are chock-full with might show the world that Ireland is really an the grossest misconceptions of how we in Ireland independent nation wilh its own national heritage live. But queer as it may seem, these pictures dJ and culture with its own modem problems and its very well in this country - Hills of Donegal is a own Christian solutions.30 recent example of this type of film. Looked at from any angle it was a poor production yet it was a As Liam O'Leary rhetorically inquired in 1946 in response to the film Captain roaring success. as was Rose of ha/ee and Saill/s u Boycott: 'How many unreal stage Irish films will it take to convince the alld Sillners.- sc~ptics Ihat we must do our own work in this. importan,1 field"~' .. pig~in-the-parlour One lrishman who did get somewhat Involved 1ll movIe maklllg III the What was the innate attraction of these type films for Irish 1950s was Lonl Killanin. He produced the film The Rising of {he Moon, a cinema audiences? What made the most feeble Hollywood 'Oirish' production a movie which was as roundly criticised as any Hollywood production for its guaranteed financial success in Ireland? The simplest answer is perhaps mere caricatured representation of Ireland and the Irish. Killanin, in his defence, laughter: that these films provided an opportunity to have a good giggle at misguided foreign perceptions of Ireland. TJ.M. Sheehy observed the audience offered an interesting observation: reaction to the aforementioned March ofTime film: Ireland has not made films because there has been no need to do so ... Stage-lrishmen. nlthough they When the Lrish commentator took over and stalted may have a little weakness for lifting their arms. his talk. reminiscent of Jimmy O'Oca's imitations of the Abbey. the audience laughed merrily. During the poverty-~en rural scenes, some people were 21 Eamonn de Valera. SI. Patrick's Day 1943 cited in Maurice Moynihan (cd.). Sl'eedw,~ allll Statemem~' by EamOll/l de \la/em. 1917-1973 (Dublin. 1980). p. 466.

19 Irish SU/Ildlml24 September 1948.

'D Irislr Cmlrolir 14 September 1944. -" Ibid. )1 Kcyin Rockett Film and Ireland: AClrrmlide (London Fcstival of the Irish Arts. H The Scree/! March 1950. 1980).

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indignant but the majority just continued to laugh some small part of the Irish cinema-gocr's psyche that took some pride in this heartily..l-l type of representation of Ireland, perhaps finding in Scan Thornton's vision of an Irish paradise, a faint echo ofde Valera's famous conclusion 10 his address to However, elsewhere Shcchy expressed the opinion that it was in fact a craving the nation after the end of World War U: "We shall endeavour to render thanks to for national verisimilitude that attracted the average Irish cinema patron to films God by playing a Christian pan in helping so far as a small nation can. to bind with an Irish theme or selling: up some of the gaping wounds of suffering humanity,',l; In any (;ase, onc can 38 argue, as Gibbons docs , that the representation of Ireland in rhe Quiet Man is Occasionally they line up for the stage-Irish type of no less 'real' than thal in O'f1aherty's 1935 film Ma" of Anll/, ecstatically film, but it is only because they are desperately received in Ireland as a "failhful and beautiful motion picture' J9 and one that at hoping to sce something resembling IrehUld on the lasl painted Ireland as she really was. An interesting addendum to this argumem screen, and knowing Hollywood's abysmal is perhaps provided by the contrasting reactions to the appearance of two films ignorance, they are prepared to suffer a lot to see a featuring the Irish language in Ireland in the mid I940s. In 1944 a British film little:'~ San Demetrio featured a small interchange between characters spoken in the Irish language. As Sheehy reported this brief passage was 'very welcome to As Irish film commentators were fond of repeating, the basic law governing Irish audiences and in Dublin was applauded in happy a fashion.'-lO In contrasl, Hollywood was box-office prone Thus the popularity of stage-Irish films in the previous year, a documemary film. Tomormw's Bread, produced in an Irish Ireland poses an imeresting question. As The Screen observed: 'What are the language version, was roundly ignored by the Irish cinema-going public. The makers of these films to think? That the more "stage-lrishisms' they import film was offered rent and calliage free to over 250 cinema proprietors but only into their films the bigger the profits are going to be as far as this coutllry is four, two in the Meath Gaellacht. one in Dublin and one in Galway, responded concemed: 36 in the affinnative. As Liam O'Leary commented in his capacity as secretary of Luke Gibbons notes that the typical image of Ireland as portrayed in the Film Society: these "Hollywood poiHn' films is one infused with a pastoral nostalgia for a pre-modem rural Arcadia. Ireland. it seems. is. in many ways, ~magin~d. on All this points to something mdically wrong. The screen as the antidote to the mechanical dystopia of modem llldustnahsed cinema proprietor can claim that his patrons do not society. Despite the recent upsurge in Irish film production this assertion wou~d want to see the film. Is he justified in this, or can seem no less valid in recent years than in earlier decades. The archetype of thiS tcachers, Gaelic groups and the general public not idea is, of course, the 1952 film, Tile Quiet M(II/. directed by John Ford. Sean Thomton. played by John Wayne, tlees the anonymity and pain of modem capitalist society and escapes to the idyllic Utopia that is Ul~ extre~lely romanticised west of Ireland. One wonders whether part of the attractIon of films n Irish Press 17 May 1945. like Tile Qlliet Mall (a resounding success at the Irish box~office) was not. in " Luke Gibbons. 'Romanticism, I\oolislll and trish Cinema' in Rocket\. Gibbons some sense, just this vision of Ireland as a unique and magical land. No maHer and Hif!. Cinema and Ire/and, p. 201'~ how much the blamey was recognised for what it was, was there not perhaps l< Irish Press 7 May 1934, cited in Gibbons. 'Romunticism, Realism and Irish Cinema' in Rockett, Gibbons and Hill. Cinema mu/lre/al/il. p. 195. ,] havc nevcr J< Irish C(ltholic 14 September 1944. seen a film which produced so complele an illusion: the taste of brine on one's lips "Ibid.. 21 December 1944. ... we had a real share in thcir [i.e. the Aran Islandersl pride." .\~ The Screen March 1950. '0 Irish Catholic 27 July 1944.

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take immediate action to support the showing of the The 1917 Russian Revolutions in British Political Thought fi1mT~1 and Literature 1918-1936: A Study in the History of Ideas*

No action was taken, The typical Irish heart, it would appear, swelled with pride Gabriel B. Paquene at the slightest intimation that an oUlsider's representation of Ireland made some recognition of the existence of the Irish language, blll whe~l it came to aCI~all.y There ha~ been so much confusion and "inspired' rumor supponing a film made in Ireland in the Irish language a dIfferent set of cntena from Russia that we feel it is time for someone with applied. authority to go there and Icll exactly what he sees and believes, A, Balltors to J.M. Keylles (1925)1

The British Reception of the Russian Revolutions, 1890-1917 Coming during the Great War and just after the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland. the Russian Revolutions profoundly affected British intellectuals, provoking debate about Western civilisation's decline. the viability of political democr.lcy, and Bolshevism's function as a new 'religion'. A community of intcmcting intellectuals from across the ideological spectrum constituted a British intelligentsia throughout the inter-war period and the Russian Revolutions had a profound impact on it. Historian Philip Pomper explains the term intclligentsia is 'usually reserved for the alienated members of the highly educated stratum of society'. but argues 'it is sufficient to think of the intelligentsia as those members of the educated classes who combine advanced or vanguard ideologies with activism.'2 The British intelligentsia were 'public moralists' because they attempted "to persuade their colllemporaries to live lip 10 their

'Special appreciation is due to Professors Philip Popmer and Cecilia Miller. Gratitude is extended to King's College Archive Centre (Cambridge), the Bodleian Library's Western Manuscripts Division (Oxford). The International Institute for Social History (Amsterdam)~ Olin Library (MiddlclOwn, eT), and the Jamcs Uardiman Library (Galway). ,...\ I Managing Editor of 77/1' Dailv Expre~'s A. Bantors to J.M. Kcyncs (1925) in LM. Kcynes Papers [hereafter, J.M.K.] RVIl/61. King's College Mlx!ern Archive CClltre. Cambridge. ~ Philip Pomper, 7711' Structure of Mind ill History: Fire Major Figllre.y in Psychohisrory (New York, (985). p. 4. ., Irish Times IS December 1943.

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~tat.e .interv:ntion .to remove obstacles imperiling ethical sclf-fulfillment of prolessed ideals' and maintained a close relationship with a public audience,3 mdlv.tdual,s III soclety.6 ~his idea, remained intact until the revolt against The most surprising phenomenon involves the public activism of the Ideal~sm III the .1930s. ThIS portran of British political thought before the intellectuals bec:lUSC it began immediately before the Revolutions. Although ~usslUn RevolutlO~s should not appear linear or homogenous: the notion of constmincd by its clitism, the British intelligentsia introduced its various th,e, commo~ good , for ex?mple, ~as used in a variety of ways even among concerns and commitments 10 the public sphere through intellectual production. ~n~ls.h Id~ahsts, enc?mpassmg theones which both elevated and diminished the In order to differentiate the ideas of the intelligentsia from the populace. I have mdlvldual s connCCllOn to Ihe social whole.7 grouped these contributions under the penumbm of the 'concept' of the Ide~lisl1l's penetration of British political and social thought prior to Revolution whereas the popular reaction is labelled the 'myth'. These academic ~he .R.evol~tlO~s must be contextualised in the overarching debate between preoccupations, or 'concepts'. included the decay of western civilisation, the .lndlVlduahsm ~nd 'C.o~lectivism' between 1880 and 1914, Although these shortcomings of parliamentary delllOCr.lCY, and Bolshevism's role as a Is~u.es pre-occupled Bnttsh thought since the Putney Debates of the English missionary religion. I have focused mainly on intellectuals. including Keynes, CIVIl ,:"ar, the terms resurfaced concomitantly in the 1880s and "Individualism' Russell and Laski whose elitism was overshadowed by a commitment to ~me m~~ gen~ral usage to den~te. the entire rangc of anti-socialist political improving the entire society, hought. To t.ts detractors, Soclahsm was synonymous with the abolition of The Russian Revolutions crystalliscd the aspirations and fears of property. fatmly, religion. class warfare, and nationaHsatio he various British political groups that had coalesced since the 1880s. In the sphere Colle~tivism i~n~lied only 'the genemltcndcncy to increase the po;erswofr: of political thought. I argue, the Russian Revolutions were not a rJ.dical st.at~. ~ollectlvl~m's definition is vaguc because pre-war progressivism was disjuncture, For this reason. they were integrated into e:dsting thought. dlstmgUlshed by Its 'eclec(icis~n'9, ranging from the Fabian Socialism of G,B, Contcmporary scholars agree that during the late ViclOrian and early Edwardian Shaw 10 the under-consu~ptlOnism of J.A. Hobson's FlIlperialism: A Study periods, societies, civic associations, and socialist groups, including the (1902). In the final analysts. however. Colleclivism encompa~sed contradict grJdualist Fabioll Society and the radical Soci(/I Delllocratic Felfem/ion."" ~rends: o.verlapping ~ith Individualism ill the debate over the inter-dcpendcnceo~ Early twenticth-ccntury progressive social science was imbucd with Impen~h~m and SOCIal refonn. lo Conservative thought between 1880 and 1914 philosophical Ide:llisrn. but was still infon11ed by biologistic models espoused was slmllarly pemleatcd by Collectivist ideas. While predicated on the by Eugenics and Spenccrian 'Social Darwinism'. Idealism enabled social commentators to view socicty as a malleable. inhercntly rational 'political 6 Jose. Hams.' 'Plato·nI.sm, POSltlVtSm... and Progressivism: Aspecls of British structure' endorsing 'a panicular sct of economic and social relations.'5 Ln S~.~ologl~al Thoughl III ,the E.arly Twell1ielh Century' in Eugenio Bia'ini (ed.), many ways. thc mounting opr)osition to natural-sciencc models of society CI/./:enshlp and Commt/lll/)': Liherah, Radicals, al/d Col/eelire ldelllil7es in the conditioned the cschewal of materialism. facilitating the focus on the 'spiritual' BrII~sh lsl~I, 1865-1931 (Cambridge, 1996), p. 255. See also AJ.M. Milne, Tile evolution of society towards the moral perfection of citizens, Borrowing from Soc/~I Ph/lo.wphy of English Idealism (London. 1962), esp. Chapters 5 and 6 Plato's idca that justice. ,md not forcc. should underpin society. the hegemony passim. Morro.~, of Idealism in British social and political thought provoked the endorsement of 7 .John 'Anccstors, Legacies. and Traditions: British Idcalism in the History of P~I~\lcal Thought' History 0/ Political Thought 6 (1985), p. 508. sStefan Colllll1. Liberalism aiwI::jodology: LT. Hohhouse ami Political Argumellt in _\ Stcfan Collini, Public Mowli,l't,l·: Politintl Tllouglll oml flttdlnll/III Uje ill Brit(jin England 1880-1914 (Cambridge', 1979). p, 17. ~ 11:150-1930 (Oxford. 1991), pp. 1-3. .Oavid Blaal.cr, nle Popular From and the Progressh'e TraditiO/I: Soci(/lists, "" Jose Harris,'Polilical Thought and lh<: Welfare Slale 1870-1940: An InlelkClllal Ltberals, (Illtlthe QueH for Unity, 1884-1939 (Cambridge, 1992), p. 126. Framework for Briti,h Social Policy' Post & Present 135 (1991), p. 111. 10 Bemard Scmme1. Imperialism ond Sodal Re/oml: EngliIh SodaJ-lmperilll l Slcfan Collini, 'Hobhouse. Bosanquel and the Slale: Philosophical tdcalism and Thought, 1895-1914 (Cambridgcl MA. 1960), pp. 28. 234. Political Argument in England 1880-19t8· Pil.l't (/lId Preselll 71 (1976). p. tlO.

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scientific dimension and. betwcen 1883 :mrl 1896. a 'religion of socialism imperfection of the inteHecL hostility to revolution. t~e organicis~l of ~ocicty, IJbe~anan ~ rbecame] a substitute religion. filling the gap left by thc decline of traditional and deep-seated skcpticisnl. Conservative thought spilt between religion.'i7 As the mentality of decline spread due to industrial shortfall and state-intcrventionist wings in the early twentieth century.ll In spite of thiS war-time destruction. Bolshevism was perceived to compensate for the spiritual difference, however. both camps disparaged the bureaucratic centralisation energy the west had lost. If diluted Marxism adapted the features of tmditional associated with Socialism. I2 religion, the confusion of the inter-war period conceming Marxism's Socialism was construed as overtly hostile to the British political simultaneous irrationality and hyper-scientism is partially explained. Since tradition. The contempt for Socialism in British mainstream thought nineteenth-century Liberalism was 'a cn:xxl nourished by a certain belicf in conditioned and presaged the reception of the Revolutions. As mentioned earlier orderly progress', the war had destroyed the 'immutable laws of social in this section, Marxism's tencts were contmry to the prevailing ideas of British intercourse"l~ As a result. a large theoretical vacuum was left when the 1917 society. In particular. Marx's theory of value. assertion of class conflict ard Russian Revolutions occurred. theory of human nature were odious to the Ethical Liberalism of the epoch that extolled social progress through individual freedom. diligcnc? frugality. ~ ~sl~u.e J.M. Keynes's 'Concept' or the Russian Revolutions parliamentatism. \3 Many commentators also detected the of Hegehan John. Maynard . Ke~nes's political views have seldomly received scholarly statisml4 that contradicted the prevailing commitment to mdlvldual freedom. attcnllon and thiS disregard has precluded analysis of the Russian Revolutions' Hegelian Idealist philosophy declined in England due to its associ.ation. with impact on his ideas. Keynes's status as the pre-eminent inter-war economist aOO Prussian militarism and the destruction of the confidence in the ratIOnality of a prominent liberal enabled him to confront the Revolutions' repercussions for institutions wrought by the war. 15 Marxism threatened the further damage 16 economic theory, Britain's international position. and the slate's role in through its scientism. systcmatising. and inherent revolutionism. economic and social planning. It is beyond the scope of this article to dctcnnine Without this understanding. it may appear strange that J.M. Keynes. the precise relation between Keyncs's political and economic thought. among other post-war commentators. should refer to 'Bolshevism', ·Leninism'. specifically between his A Shorl View (!{ Russia (1925) and The General or 'Communism' as a religion. When intell'reted in the context of the Theory of Employmem, 11lIere.\·t. (llId MOlley (1936). Instead, I argue that nineteenth-century response to Communism, it becomes cogent: British Keynes's political thought. though far less developed than his economic Collectivists and Ethical Socialists recognised the theoretical potency of ~heo~ies.19 was pre-occupicd with the Revolutions and this linkage has Marxism. but accepted its antipathy to prevailing ideas. They modified its mevllable consequences for his economic ideas. Keynes predicated his political ideas upon economic assumptions: 11 E.H.H. Green. "171(' Cri.~i.~ ofCol1sen'(l/ism: 7J,c Politics. Ecollomil's. and Ideology before the Russian Revolutions occurred. he argucd {hat 'enlightened' individual of the Briri~'h C(m.\'CITlllh·c Pany. 1880-/9l.j (New York and London. 1995). pp. self-imerest and public interest would form a new altruistic harmony among 313·3t6. I~ J.R. Greenway. 'British Conservatism and Bureaucracy' History of Political individuals and society.2o For this reason. his support of pcmlanelll state Thoughl 13 (1992). p. 152. Il Kirk Willis:The lntrodudion and Critical Reception of Marxist Thought in 11 Stephcn Yea. 'A New Ljfl:; The Religion of Socialism in Britain 1883-1896' Britain. 1850-t900' 1/i.~toric(l1 JoufIllll 20 (1977). pp. 442. 452. !listory WorksholJ 4 (1977) ....rh·6. I~ G.W.F. Hege1. "I1w Philosophy of Hisrory (trans. J. Sibree New York. 1956). IS Michael Freeden. Libaalism'Dil'itJetl: ASwdy ill Briti~'h Political Thoughl J914­ especially pp. 46-48. /939 (Oxford. 1986). p. 9. 13 Peter Robbin~. nU' British Hegeliol/.\· /875-J925 (New York and London. 1982), 19 Wayne Parsons. 'Keynes and the Politics of Ideas' Hi~'fOJ}' of PolitiCll/ Thought 4 p. 105. (1983). p. 368. 11> Smart Maelntyre. A Pro/ewrilm SI"i('/lI'c: Marxism ill Briwil1 J9J7-/933 20 Freeded. Libaalism DiI"idetl. p. 158. (Cambridge. 1980). p. 49.

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Europeans have kept for some centuries in different intervention in the economy, a balance between state and individual control. ard compartments of the soul-religion and business. the application of moral code~ to politics were consistent with prevailing liberal Wc are shocked because the religion is new, and ideas. They were not directly dctemlined by the Revolutions or Bolshevism per contemptuous because the business, bein" se. Keynes's notion of the relation between theory and pmctice, however, subordin.at~ to ~ligion instead of the other wa; hinges on his aversion to violent rcvolution. He proposed that intellectuals were around. tS hIghly lIlefficiell1. 26 responsible for 'preparing the way for the acceptance of non-orthodOx views ard policies' 10 ensure that intel1eetual revolutions are not supcr,;eded by political In ,Key~es's view. Lenin's combi~ation is original, yet provocatively oncs. Keynes's ('ommitment to this pragmatic goal may partial1y explain his threatell~n~ t~ t.he westem world vIew. Keynes dispamgc.>; the mixture's dual 'lctivity in politics and the world of ideas! I becausc Keynes posited that economic 1I1efficlency. but recognises its political potency. In this way, Keynes 'capitalism above all else faced an ideological crisis.'!! Keynes's espousal of affilnns t.he ~we.r o.f ferve~t ideas to overco~e material obstacles. For Keynes, the priority of ideas may explain the presence of the 'Victorian philosophy of Bo ~hevlsm s p~lonty o~ I.deas over economic factors is justified only through social bettennenCv in his economic writings. While recent scholars have ,,~ ther ll1ternal. ..logIC of rehgiOn and he posits qualitic·.~ sl,"-'""'".... by LeIl1l1lsm"" :ULI pointed to the origins of Keynes's ideas to either the 1924 debate over re tglOn. ,m~sslOnary ardou~ .md imolerance chief among them. Keynes's unemployment. the 1925 debate over the gold standard, or the 1929 dispule over chamcte~satton of Bo.lshevlsm as a religion represents a 'concepl' of the loan-tinanced public worksN . the role of the Revolutions has been ignored. RevolutIons because. 11 employs intellectual categories to comprehend the If Keynes reacted strongly to the Revolutions of 1917, his ideas were events. Key.ne~ conscIously recognised the origins of the new religion's appeal. not integr,lted systematically into his thought until his brief visit to Sovict He locates tt III what I have temled the popular 'myth' of the Re'ol t" " . 'fi 11 . h u Ions, Russia in 1925. His friends. fellow Bloomsbury luminaries Leonard ard SpeCI tea y 111 ~ e 'strong emotional curiosity of the masses' and the exotic Virginia Woolf. published his impressions in a pamphlet entitled A Short Vie\\" nature of RusSla, 'the beautiful and foolish youngest SOil of the E f '1 '~7 d' . uropcan of Russia.2s Although widely distributed in Keynes's time. this document has al111 y.. He Iscredlts Bolshevism as the outgrowth of an 'obsolete cc " t tb k' , . 'fi onomlc been largely ignored by recent scholars. Keynes's analysis of Soviet Russia .ex ~" sctentl Ically erroneous', and unacceptable to an 'educated. decent mixes profound sympathy and admiration for the Bolshevik experiment with ll1tcl~lgent son or ~estem Europe.'28 For Keynes, capitalist econoJl1i~ acrid sarcasm and disgust for the underpinnings of the un-European regime. effi~len~y n.ms.t outw~lgh the emotional allure of Bolshevism's religious aspect. Most remarkably. his initial analysis anticipates historian Amold Toynbce's a,n .Ide:l .1l1tnns~c t~, hl.s overarchi.ng ~uspicion of revolutions. I argue Keynes's argument for the religious basis of Bolshevism: fau.onallty claun IS hnked. to h,~ .!tbeml idea that demgates vanguard coups wh~c.h pre-empt de~ocr.Jtlc deCISIon-making. In this way. he rerutes the Leninism is a combination of two things which ~egll1l~lacy ~~ revolutton 'by a few' and assert the 'totality or individual wi lls'29 111 vahd pohtlcal change.

21 These dual cOnltllitlllcnts arc discussed more fully in E.S. Johnson and H.G. 2t> Ibid .. p. 11. Johnson. 'The Social and Intellectual Origins of the Gewral Theon" lliJlory of 21 Ibid .. p. 13. N.B.: .Keyn~s:::i.~omplimentary description of the 'Russian Characler' f'oliliclIl E("(Jllomy 6 (1974). pp. 266-267. shoul~ n~1 obs:ure hIS .raclsn~ <4ld cultural chauvinism. [n J.M.K. 0515123, Keynes 22 Parsons. 'Keyncs', p. 384. descnb<:s'5'"the reckless RUSSians as 'being at Ihe mercy of \h+~,~1""w,.." Keyness" !.J lohnsoll and Johnson. 'The Social and Intellectual Origins of the Gelleral anu- emlllSm earned hUll Ne\\" Re{wblit: edilor Herbcn Croly's gcnlle rcbuk n (1 MK Tht'or\", p. 275. RVII/69)...... 24 Paul AddisOll. 'TIlc Intellectual Origins of the Keynesiall Revolution' TII'el1lielll > Keynes. SlIort Vie\-\' of RIl.l"Sill. p. 14. Ce/1/lIry BritiJ'h His/or.\" 2 (1991).1" 89. ~ J.M. Keynes. ·Russia'. J.M.K. 05/5/30. l.\ J.M. Keynes. A S/lorl View of RII~'si{/ (London. 1925).

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In other essays on Russian themes, Keyncs portmys a struggle between Gem~an Sociul Dc~lOCrJ.Cy in 1896,.15 Even ut this early stage. Russell wus 'cruel" , ·corrupt'. 'inefficienf rulers and 'civilisation'30. demonstraling his sceptl.c:ll. of Marx.lsm's methodology for four re:lsons: (I) He criliciseJ M~rxlsrn connection 10 the 'wncept' of the Revolutions fashioned in the historical s rev.olutlOnary rhetoric for divisiveness that impeded progress; (2) profession. Keynes argued that there is not 'any economic improvement for :u'scrted th'.11 tts pUlported scientific approach precluded pragmatism: (3) Interpreted ItS dernOCr..ttic component as extreme; and (4) rebuked M' '. ' which Rcvolution is a necessary instrument". but :ldmined that 'irreligious '1"[ • d" . .lrXlsm s capitalism'}1 mu~t overcome the Revolution's emotional allure, Mirroring M:lx al ure _t~ ~~tlJ.lgul~h anificia~ inequalities from natural ones. [t :lppears, then I~~~S Weber's The Proteswm Elhic a/ld the Spirit of Capitalism (1904)32. Keynes that Ru.ssell.s of MarXIsm were established long berore the Russian concedes his 'concept' is vulnemblc due to the moral hollowness of the Revolution, Justllymg historian Phi[ip lronside's claim that the Revolutions ~o ~nduring e:lpitalist West. The Russian Revolutions have exposed the 'moral problem' of had impact on his thought except for momentarily exciting him. westem Europe's all-consuming 'love of money:.13 For this re:lson, the IronSlde s own arguments, however. connict with his conclusion becausc Russ~1I Bolshevik Revolution revealed the west's shortcomings. compelling the west to was an. eager participant in the I.L.P. Leeds Convention :Uld the glean 'something which we can learn' from Revolutionary Russi:l.H Kcynes's RUSSIan Revolutl?llS marked 'onc or the few moments of his tife when he was ~p interpretation of Russian events was both determined by his liberal predilections caught emotIOnally wilh popular enthusiasrn.'3b On this basis, the provok~d Rus~ell and helped to transform them. If the link between Keynes's politie:ll aOO RevolutIons 10 act publicly. He visited Russia in 1920 and tre~ted. magrK~l1lmously, economic thought is direct. as other scholars have argued, Keynes's fascinmion was even sel:uring an hour-long meeting with Lenin! Rus~eJ] with the Revolutions facilitates new readings of his economic work and further s .dlsgust lor. the Bolshevik experiment did nOI stern ror sympathy with elucidates the connections between historical events and shifts in ideas. the. RUSSIan .People , but derived primarily from Bolshevik Russia's failure to ~eahse.the gUIld Soci~list ideal to which Russcll h:ld clung :U1d rrom the severe Bertrand Russell's Account of the Bolshevik Menace to Impediments BolshevIsm plal:ed on intellectual rreedom. Rus~eJrs Civilisation . ,. preoccupation with Bolshevik Russia did not subside after V~SI\, i~spired B(}I.~ltelli.\"lII: Although Bertmnd Russelrs (1872-1970) broad interests ensured thm he hiS but tr1steaJ his Pmcl;ce al/d Them)' (1920). The participated in the formation of the debate over the Revolutions. he devoted ~k s to.ne and styl~ Itldicate its intende~ popular audience. Russell's purpose, I most attention to debunking the exaggerated aspects of Ihe public's ~rgue. was to .mo~iIfy the exaggerated leutures of the popular 'myth' and to interprctation, This section :lnalyses Russell as public intellectual. not as a lIlfu,se them wtlh lIltellectual categories which transcended hysterics. His book Cambridge philosopher. Recent scholarship has admirably addressed Russe11's partially succeeds by ~ntrodlK'ing ideas of religion, civilisation. :lOO democracy. political and social thought. yet it remains useful to isolate Russell's reaction ~h~ough he categonsed Bolshevism as a religion 'as adrnimble as [thatl to the Russian Revolution because it locates him in the network of publiely­ lIlstlll~? by Sermon .on the Mount', an answer 10 Europe's 'disillusion alkI engaged intellectuals and reveals the impact of this capacity on his thought. de~~,ltT , he also castIgated its fanaticism and threat to 'progress' and 'the free Marxist ideas appeared in Britain during the late-nineteenth century and SPlrtt of l11an,.'.17 Russell"s criticism dirferentiates between 'the Western World' Russell's intellectual cal\.>(:r commenced with the publication of a treatise on and ·Bolsh~vlstl1'. :U1d. mai~tains that unless the West 'adopts less painful aid more certam methods of IIltroducing Socialism that 'civilisation might go ~" l(, lbid .. J.M,K. GS/5/23. .11 Keyne~. Shorl Vkl\' of Rm'~i(l, pp. 24-25. IS Philip Ironsidc. 11ll' So('hll lint! PofiliclI} Thought of Ber/raJIII Rwm://: The .1~ Max W~ber. 171t' /)roll'~'t{//tt Elhic tlnd the Spirit of CtI/Jitalis/II (Irans. Takotl en'dopm('JI/ of 1I11 Aristocrllfi(' Libcrali,rlll (Cambridge, jlJ96). p. 25. Parsons, umdon and New York, 1996). e..,p. pp. 182-183. Ibid.. p. 135. J:I KeYlle~, Short Vii'll' of RI/Isia, p, 26. :I] BertriJnd Russell. Bohhl'l"i.wt: Praclin' (I/ul "ntl'ory (New York, 1(20). pp. 14-15. J_I Keyncs, 'The Economic Transition or England', 1.M.K. RY1l/39.

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spont:meousw " .thought. " that underlics....'all serious inno""""",'"•. These ,catUrcs' under for a thousand years: 3S It appears. then, that Bolshevik fanaticism at~ · ere ,Ibser,lt III hIS earlrer polemICS against scientific Socialism and are embedJed revolutionary ardour repel Russell more than the ideological system itself. Ir 2 ~1.1 ~ussell s ~e~~mp.ha~i~ of Miltian liberali sm-l and reason. Russell argues that Russellleft for Russia convinced of Guild Socialism's or Fabianism's virtues, rfI'a better crvll1satlon rs .10 emerge from the pre~en'., '-,.eh"O" then socrety', must his Bohllel.i.vm: Pmc/iL'e wul Theory reconfinned his allegiance to democratic re ~,on. ,l~en wh~ ger1Ulncl~ believe in reason. '013 These assertions locate institutions and awakened him to their fragility in Britain. Unlike othcr ~u~sell s . conce~t squarely 111 the Idealist and Liberal tradition and. perhaps intellectuals, including Keynes. it was the 'practice' rmher than 'theory' of r,ndl~ate hrs grow1l1~ ~onservatism that emerged from his lear of Bolshevism< Bolshevism which Russell repudiated because Bolshevik theory's application consequences for Bntarn. posed the greatest threat to 'civilisation': Harold Laski. the Bolshnv',k.. E.xperllnent, and the Inapplicahility I believe that. if the Bolshevik theory as to the of Revolution to Britain method of transition is adopted by Communists of ·Hamld Laski has been altemately pmiSt.'<.1. ,.'IS L"bou',• r s Iead'1I1g ,rnter-war Western nations, the result will be prolonged 1I1te!lectual and denounced as a sycophantic. unoriginal thinker. My article chaos. leading neither to Communism not to any aVOld~ the well.-worn dcbate over Laski's merits

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Grammar (~r Pufirio (1925) can be interpreted as an explanation of working reason to suppose that the handful of Easlem class political action in the context of parliamentary state power after the Intellectuals who frequent Moscow could, in a cr!sis. dominate India or China in the way, and Bolshevik regime failed to realise its lofty goals. Laski's aspirations for the Soviet experiment were dellated by its With purpose, of Lenin and Trotsky.4\1 atrocilies, yet the Revolutions still occupied an under-appreciated part of his c;~1rll thought. In 1927. Laski published Communism and captured broad public The toneof L:lski's passage stems. I argue, from distaste for the prevailing redu(,tlve ten~cllcy, of British popular thought concerning revolution. Simply attention. selling 40.000 copies in the first yearY" Although less theoretical because an lIltcl1lgemsia-led movement succeeded in one country. Laski than his other works. it epitomises the moderate left-wing 'concept" of the contends, does not neces.~itate its reiteration in another context. even under Bolshevik Revolution and Soviet experiment. yet articulates its ideas in the s~milar conditions. For this reason, Laski appeals for an analysis of the specific popular idiom. I argue that Laski's incorporation of the Bolshevik enterpri:ie Circumstances of each situation without resorting to 11100els based on inflated into his political thought originated from historical consciousness. He claimed .exagg.erat~d 50 that the Paris Commune of 1871 was 'essentially a foreshadowing of the fe:u"S ?r rational causation. Laski's displeasure with the reductlOl1lst logiC of the popular reprcscntmions is the golden thread conncctin" Bolshevik Revolution' that demonstrated the inadequacy of seising existing state the disparate ~art~ of Commlllli."}·m. In a concluding passage, Laski castigate~ power. the need for military support of the proletariat. and the mandalory n repression of the capitalist class for a successful Communist Revolution: those who ma1l1taltl [hat cOlmnunists arc 'anxious, at any possible moment, to up~n Unsurprisingly, Laski's historicist perspective enabled him to identify the make an atlack the established order.' Instead of presenting an alternative m(~el. Jesuits as an antecedent for the Bolsheviks. This comparison merged the of cornmullls1l1's internal logic. he argues for its emotional, irrational '~Ilconquerabl.e historical perspective with the category of religion that Russell and Keynes baSIS III the hope I;mdj heedless and instinctual gellcl"Osity.'51 deployed. Laski's comparison, however. was less complimentary. emphasising Whereas LaskJ does not reject the value of cmotion. his view of the Revolution repudiates COlllmunism's rationality and its applicability to Britain. In this the 'rigorous and unyielding sense of dogmas' among the Bolsheviks..t8 Like Keynes and Russcll. Laski attempted to isolate the legitimate threats of way. he dismissed Communism's plausibility for Britain in the I920s. My interpretation of Laski's CommuniSIII is supported by his Bolshevism from the hysterical trepidation. Unlike other theorists, however. Laski focusst>d on the aggmndised subsequent a\lack on the Third Internation:ll's 'relenlless logic' in Democracv threat Bolshevism posed to the British Empire, Although Laski's explanation is ill Crisis (1930) that he asserts is inapplic:lble to 'concrete English situations;, animated by pragmatism. it reveals his pre-occupation with the connection its 'historic climate', and the British 'empiric' character.52 Laski reconfirmcd between theory and practice and his diminished estimation of the power of an his views when he visited the Soviet Union in 1934. an experience that intelligentsia to instigate political change: aggravat~d his contempt for the Stalinist dictatorship.53 The Bolshevik Re:~lu\lon forced Laski to confront the historical and cultural JlCculiarities of Nor can it be said that lBolshevikl Eastern political systems and the meaning of revolutions. If Laski"s private documents propaganda is likely to have the results they foresee arc perused. Ihe continuity between his initial response to the Revolution anl The destruction of Western influence does not necessarily mean communism. There is no special ~9 Ibid .. p. 199. ~ :10 Bcrnard Zylslra. "'/v1II PluF1llislII 10 COII/'{'Iirism: 771{' Dn't"lotu/ICIII of I-Iarold Ln.l'ki·s Political "1"/10111:/1/ (Assen, 1968), p. 135. .;tJ [saac Kramnick and Barry Shccrman, I-Iaroltl Lt/ski: A Ufe 011 Ifll' Ll'ft (New York. ~I Laski, CO!I!I!!11l1i~'m, p. 2-1.8. 1993). p. 259. ~1 Humid Laski. D{'lIIorrr/r.\' itl Crhi,l' (Chapel Hill. (930), p. 260. 47 Haro[d Laski. Cml/llllwixlI1 (New York, 1927). pp. 36-37. ~3 Newman. u/ski. p. 74. 48 [bid.. p. 5 [.

106 107 HiS/(IIT S/l/l!i('S 312001 1li.1'lor.\' Srudies 112()()J his more mature position becomes apparent. In a 1918 letter to Liberal Re\'o~uti()1f (1917) disputed this assumption, asserting that in England arx:l internationalist Alfred Zimmern, he claimed that Ihe failure to distinguish Amenc~ the 'precondition of any real people's revolution is the break-up, the between 'Soviet theory and Bolshevik practice' was 'surely the outcome of an .\'h{/~f~rlll~ of the 'ready-made state machinery.'61 Lenin argued that after Anglo-Frcnch blindness similar to that which produced the terror in Fmnce in ~nlllhtlatlllg th~ 'old bureaucrJtic machine', a transitional regime is 1llX.-xk.-d to 1793.'54 In this early letter, Laski's historical consciousness and agonising reduce all offiCialdom to naught. '62 Although moderate left intellectuals were over the link between theory and practice arc evident. Yel from his American more receptive to Leninism and the Soviet Union, they were not convinced viewpoint, he did not want Bolshevism to succumb entirely to its conservative completely of the Revolutions' virtues. In his 1921 prcface to Humall Naif/re ill attackers who aspired to be 'the masters of England.'55 He maintained that the P(}~i~ics (1908), Graham Wallas commented that the 'anti-parliamentarism arxI domination of a single set of ideas led to a less vigorous state and lessened ils ~nt~-lIltellectllal ~f consensual basis. He abandoned this view when he later observed the 'infinite ism' the Bol.shevik Revolution had discreditcd the assumption a~~o~nal1cally traged' wrought by revolution.56 As Laski observed the development of . lllt,;n [wereI gUIded by enlightened sclf-intcres(, mising anxiety d.bout freed.om s consequences for 'the future of civilisation.'6J Gmham Wallas, Russian Communism, he became increasingly wary of Revolutions in general. h.ke ~ther mtel.lectuals, was not immune to hysterical speculation. Writing to In an unpublished manuscript entitled 'The Meaning of 1848', Laski comments hIS fflend and lellow Fabian G.B. Shaw, Wallas wrote: 'all great revolutions explode with a sudden and dramatic violence which tends to conceal Ihe slow disintegration of societies it is their function 10 I watched Winston Churchill's annourcd cars complete.'5? Laski's language dcmonstmtcs his concern with the decay of marching last May through London's streets arld civilisation, historical consciousness, and religious decline. realised that the young members of his defense team were probably thinking of the ease with The Intelligentsia Generates a 'Concept'58 which they could bring a Fascist coup to London Whereas individual thinkers filtered the Revolutions into their political thought. We ought to think more seriously about the the Revolutions also compelled all intellectuals to confront Marxism as a military position than Giolilti or Kerensky did.64 legitimate ideological doctrine. The most visible impact was on left-wing political thought. The nl(Xjerate Left·s response to the Revolutions was refer~ncc ambivalent. The Revolutions challenged all political factions to re-evaluate the Wal.las's to Giolitti and Kercnsky. who were deposed by Mussolini arld ~Clll~, r.cspectlvcly, reflects the widespread fear of non-parliamentary revolution role of the state in society59, but lhe modemte left. composed of Laski. RusselL B~ll~ll1. m~1l10ry and G.D.H. Cole, among others, maintained that the state was crucial to social III The of the Russian Revolution permeated Wallas's thought. provldlllg cmcgones to analyse British political eircumst:lI1ces. well-being, stressing its capacity for social reform.6o Lenin's State (lml

5./ Laski to Zimmern. 20 September 1918. Zimmem 15 f. 152. Department of Sci/'I1C1'. p. 18t. Western Mllnuscripts. Bodleian Library. 61 v.l.. L,".in. St(/{e ami R/'l'olutiol1 (New York. 1932. 1943). p. 34. N.B.: The 55 Zimmern. 153fn15. quotallons III Lcnin's writing stcm from Marx's The Cil'iJ Wl/r ill Franc/'. 5<> Laski. Democracy ill Crisis, p. 266. 6, Ibid .. p. 42. 51 Harold Laski. 'The Meaning of t848', Laski TMs, International Institute of Social f>.JGraham Wallas. Numan Nall~r"'u.\ill PoJiliCl' (New York. 2"" edition. /921), pp. 6-8. History, Amsterdam. Wallas .was n.orenllr~ly averse to Bolshevism. but de~piscd its 'suffering and waste." S8 Ramsay MaeDonBritish Library MmlUscripts Collection. Thought I~r Gmhwn Wallas (Oxford. 1971). esp. pp. 178- r79. S9 Macllllyrc. A Proletarian Science. p. 178. M.o. Wallas to G:B. Shuw. 13 February 1927. Additional Manuscript 50553, British 60 Winter. Socialism (//ul fhe Clwl/I'llge of War. p. 5 and Maclntyn:. A Prolewria/f Library Manuscnpts Collection.

108 109 HiS/(Iry Swdies 3/2001 j !is!oI)' Studies 3/2001

sustained itself through Alexander I reign. 69 In the period before the Crimean Other left-wing intellectuals, including Guild Socialist and Labour War. Russian litermure's 'poetical" quality was juxtaposed to Russia's 'barbaric' Party activist G.D.H. Cole, did not share Wallas's constemation. Although he origins. After this Anglo-Russian connict, Russophobia was ascendent in both admired the Revolution and lauded the Soviet system's development. he rejected tt~e 'highbrow' poetry of Alfred Tennyson .md the period's popular litemture. 'domestic attempts to imitate Russia's example'65 because of the wide chasm Sldney Dobell"s jingoistic poem 'England's Day' (1871) demonstmles thal sepamting Russia's economic history and political tmdition from that of Great 'Russian, Yankee. and Prussian' were Britain's inveterate enemies am Britain. The most enduring aspcct of Cole's analysis was the absence of "knaves:?O The animosity toward Russia and the advent of the Russian 'parliamentary democmcy in any real sense' in Russia as opposed to the ~vol~tio,nary . nihilism became the dominant Russian themes in English 'strongly entrenched'lib democratic tradition in Britain, Cole's attitude typified lmaglllatlve hterature. though Tolstoy's and Turgenev's work was widcl progressive intellectuals who both vigorously supported the Soviet Union's dis.tribut~d and appreciated. Besides British litcr:.l1ure·s exposure to Russia~ maturation, yet were sceptical of its application to Britain. wnters 111 the late nineteenth century, two additional trends conditioned the If Wallas and Cole were wary of revolution, most liberal intellectuals reception of the Russian Revolutions in Britain. First. Edwardian novelists adamantly opposed it. Besides trampling the democratic process, mdical1y frequentl.y alluded .~ith horror to the 'increasingly dispossessed working class', changing state power, and committing mass atrocities, Liberals saw 'Russia a" th~ ~~hn.e of .BTltlsh character due to urban life patterns. the prospects of a sufficient reminder'b? of democmcy's fragility. Mainstream liberals, such as Bntalll s lIlVaSl0n by a foreign power. and the disintegration of the British Alfred Zimmern, recognised education of the poor as a method to prevent the ~astor~l. These a~xieties ret1ected a prevailing concern that British society, growth of Bolshevism in Britain and increase national consciousness. According lIlcludlllg liS 'ractal stock', was 'degenerating:? 1 Second, the turn-of-the­ to Zimmern, 'to the town-lad of today, England. the England of Shakespeare, is century witnessed the British intellectual elite's disparagement of 'mass culture' something of which he is only dimly aware:t>8 Like his intellectual th~t degraded its civilisation.n In the case of the Bloomsbury Group, the contemporaries. Zimmem was convinced of British society's degeneration am ul1lversal character of art differentiated it from "transient. commercial culture' its vulnerability to extemal enemies. The Revolutions both reinforced am and it 'tnmscendcd pclly social cont1icts.'73 Although I disagree with their tranSfomled the intelligentsia's debate over civilisation's future, parliamentary conclusions. the cultuml elite's observmions of the rise in 'mass culture' was democracy, and tmditional religion. For these reasons, the revolulionary 'event' aCCu~dte because a market for 'Iow priced and sensational' fiction targeting the exerted a contentious and radical force in intellectuals' political thought. workll1g~classes emerged to polarise fiction into 'lowbrow and highbrow From Nihilists to Secret Agents: The Revolutions in British Literature The preponderance of Russian themes in British literature prior to 1917 presaged If} Anthony G. Cross. 7711' Russian 77wme in Engli,rh Lirer(lfure From the Sixteenlh­

the reception of the Revolution. Although William Shakespeare cursorily Cl'lltllry to 1980: An {llIrodUClOry Surwy and (I Bibliography (Oxford, 1985), pp. 4, referred to Russia in The Winter's Tale and Love's Labour's Lost. Peter the 19. In rhe Will/er's Tale. sce vo1. Ill. ii; III LnJ'e'.r Labour'.r Lost, sec vo!. V, ii. Great's visit to England in 1698 genemted Russophilia in British literature that 70 Quoted in Patrick WaddinglOn, From 77le Russi(ln Fugitil'l' to nle 8(1//(/d of 8ulgal"it': Episodes ill E/lglish Literan' Altitudes to RU,j·.ria from Wort!.rM"orth 10 Swinbume (Oxford and Pro,,'~dellce, 1994), p, 95. 71 William Grcell~ladc, D;~l'lIer(l/ioll. Culture, ami the NtJl'd. 1880-1940 M A.W, Wright. G.D.H. Coil' and Socialist Democracy (Ox:ford, (979). p. 97, (Cambridge, (994), p. 256. M G.D.H. Cote, What Marx Really Meant (New York, (934), p. 157. n D.L. Le Mahicu. A Cllltllrefor Democmcy: Mass Communication mullhe Cultil'(l/etl Alfred Zinuncrn. Lecture 011 Education and Democrac.\', 7 1917. 6? December Mind Bt'lIl'l'elt the Wtlr,j' (Oxford, (988), pp. 103, 108.

Zimmcrn 138fn7. 7) Le M"hicu, A Cl/Ill/re for Dl'lItocmC)", pp. 122·123. 6l! Ibid.. I38fn 13.

III 110 History Str/dies 3'2001 History Srudit's J/2/JO/

satur~ted with references to Russia which anlicipate the intellectual and popular camps:H The demarcation was not rigid. as cenain novels were classified in reactl,on .to th~ Russian ~ev.olutions. Conrad anticipates the 'myth' in two each camp. w~ys. Fm!, hIS ~rol~gOI1lSI .IS pc.rplexed by the 'illogicality of lthe Russian[ The connation of these two trends triggered the popularity of the 'spy attllud~. th'~oarbllrann~s~ 01 theIr conclusions. land] the frequency of the novel' and 'invasion fiction' in the late nineteenth century, Both were a exceptlO.na~ . a descnp~101l that renders the Russians non-European. Second, 'political response to the erosion of Britain's status and prestige·. and the Conrad 1I1utates conventlon when detailing the 'sumptuous immensity of the protagonists of both genres were 'distinguished by ltheir\ English-ness', serving :m 75 sky'. 'endless .for,ests·. and 'plains of immense country' of Russia!'. as a 'symbol of stability' in a changing world: Although ambivalent references that tndlcate Russia·s portentous threat to British interests. Conrad portraits of Russian nihilists frequently appeared in British fiction. the 'spy d~~~s .from the 'myth'.. ~owever. to confront the 'concept· of Russian novel' and 'invasion fiction' reflected an acute concem for Russia·s threat to CIVIlisatIon. He contrasts Bnl1sh and Russian characters when he compares Britain's Empire, intemal tranquillity, and sovereignty. Popular fiction was one of the principle transmitters of ideas about Russia before the Revolution. de.~ribcd The civilised man, the enthusiast of oovanccd WiIliam Le Qucux's The Grea/ War in England /897 (1894) the hu.n~anitarian ideals thirsting for the triumph of 6 invasion of Britain by Russian 'masses' and 'hordcs'.7 This negative image sP.lfltuallove and politicallibcrty. and the stealthy, was tempered by sympathy for Russian Revolutionaries who combated Russia·s pnmeval savage. pitilessly cunning in the 77 corrupt, arbitrarily governed. police state. Throughout the fiction. however, preservation of his freedom from day to day like a there exists assumptions that Russia's and Britain's historical experiences AA: tracked wild beas!,82 distinct. Russia abided by 'different standards of human behaviour·. and 'the vastness of the [Russia's] enormous population and military' were pennanent The passa.ge·s intemallogic suggests the incompatibility of British civilisation 78 dangers to British interests. :m~ Ru~sl:tn sa:agery, ~n. interpretation consistent with the segregation of Although many of the intellectual elite's novelists did not confront ,Eas.t~m ~rom ,Westem IdeiL" throughout the novel. 'Ideals', 'love'. aJ-d Russian themes, Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (1907) and Under \Ves/em . pol,ltl~.al hbe~y arc ffi.ade the ex~l~sivc domain of Westemers. After forming Eye.l. (19\0) contributed to popular perceptions of Russia that conditioned the a~l ~lh~l~ee WIth ~uSSlU. the Bntlsh govemment sought to emphasise the formation of the 'myth and concept: In The Secret Agellt, Conmd castigates SllnllantlCS of Russl:tns and Britons. revolutionaries as 'enemies of discipline', 'fanatics', and as driven by 'vanity, . The rev.ival .of the 'spy novel· and 'invasion llction· after the 1917 the mother of all noble and vile illusions:7'! Conl1ld's Ullder Westan Eyes is Russl:ln Re~'o.lul1ons mdicates the govemment's failure and the cntrenchmcnt of Russophoblc tdeas in the public sphere. In the 19'0"·_"" 'u,,,t:U__" was,. th e dommant " wor~ of adventure fiction as The Red Tomorrow (1920), 71Ie Red uu/" (1920), 74 Joseph McAleer, Popu/(/f Readillg (lIuf Publishing in Britaill, 1914-1950 (Oxford. and The Red Radio (1927) became popular novels and showed 'just ·how un- 1992), pp. 16,41. 7$ David Troller, n,e Englisfr NOI'el in History, 1895-1920 (London and New York. ~!eci{/f Branch: Tlte Brilish Spy N!)\'e!. /890-/980 (Bowling Green (Ohio], 1981). 1993), p. 169, Queux'~ 76 1 draw my analysis of Le novel from Keith Neilson. 'Tsars and Josep~ Conrad. Under \V~em Eyes: A NOl'el (New York and London, 1910), p.4.

A~·'le/lde'J. P Commissars: W. Somerset Maugham. and Images of Russia in British For pertlllent secondary crilic5Sm. sce He1cn Funk Ricselbal:h, Cmlr{/{l"s Rebd~: Tile Adventure Fiction' Cmwdil.lll Journal of I-Uston' 27 (1992), pp. 475-500. 479. Psychology of Rel'ofwioll in the NOI'e!s from NO.flromo 10 Vielorl' (A" A bo "I. - nrr, 77 Neilson. 'T~ars and Commissars'. pp. 482-483. M IC ligan, 1985). c;;p, Chapler;; J and 4. 78 Ibid., p. 483. 81 Conrad. Umler Western Eyes. pp. 32, 64. 7'1 Joseph Conrad. Tfre Secrt'f Agent: ASimple Tafe (Garden City INYI, 1907. 1953), 82 Ibid .. pp. 120-121. p. 55. For an cXl:ellent discussion of the Briti~h 'spy novel' see LeRoy L. Panek, The

113 112 !listor.\' Studies 311001 Hislon' Sludies 312001

Book Club' that gained popula:ity after 1936, many left-wing wrilers of the British are both the Bolshevik ideas and those who support Ihem.'R3 Many of 1~30s looked lo":,ard. the Sovlel .union to answer Capitalism's impending these novels were linked to the aseendantjingoism and anti-Semitism in British fadu~e. An exa~mnatlon of the literature of the perioo illustrates that the Till' BlI/tle of Londoll society. Hugh Addison's (1923), for example. depicls a Ru~sJan RevolutIOns were merely one of the concerns of British writers of the weak British government faced by two Russian Jewish commissars. yet Britain penoo. In addition to the aftcr-shocks of Wo,Id W I . f 84 ...." ar , many 0 the destroys their designs with a single torpedo. W. Somerset Maugham's ~reoccu.patlOns of .~fI{lsh wnters were psychological and spirituaL mlher than A.I'llel/({cn: Or the Secret Agem (1927) refuted many of the traditional ~deol~gtcal. or polttt~al. E.M. Forster epitomised this reaction in his speech representations of Russians. Set between the March and November Revolutions .Engltsh Literature SlIlce the War.' He professes that his generation is 'weary f in SI. Pctersburg, it depicts a British agent interacting with Russians ruld t~eals ... [and] suspects science because she has provcd herself a dcstructj~e British nationals. Maugham's novel ridicules the British elite, whose cmbmec rathcr (~an beneficent powe.r'. I~iggering a 'disillusioned and rather cynical''ll of Russian culture resembles the 'virulence of an epidemic of inlluenza.'85 ~orld-vlew. Alth~ugh Engltsh IIteraturc's changes during the inter-war period Although Maugham ellcoumged 'spy novels' 10 confront Russia more fully. he ~re .better cxplamed through its intcrnal developments than by cxternal often lapsed into conventional description. In a romantic encounter with lmpmgcments, such as war or revolution. the Revolution was incorpomtcd into AnastHsia Alexandrovna. Ashenden claims 10 view 'the boundless steppes of these debates and subtly challenged them. Russia land] the Kremlin with its peeling bells' in her eyes,SI> . :or political theorists and novelists, thc 1917 Russian Revolutions did Betwcen 1928 and 1930. however. there was a mpid decline of no~ t~dehbly transform their thought as the Revolutions were absorbed into prc­ 'invasion fiction' and a shift in the 'spy novel.' Popular novels of the 1930s ~xlstmg. deba~es. Instead, the Revolutions forced the intelligentsia to reconsider lost interest in Russian themes and became preoccupied with world connict liS r~latton with mass society and. therefore, provoked them to cmphasise ide..'lS s7 caused by technological advance. British concern for Russia. class conflic\' pcrtment 10 a broader public. and communism did not cease altogether: Between 1928 and 1939, the British Board of Film Censors banned Battleship Po/ell/kill. Strike, and Octoha. three Russian films glorifying the Bolshevik achievemenLlIs Although the thn.'e best-selling 'lowbrow' novels of the 1920s confronted class conflictS'l. aOO many more broached socialist issues'lo. the tenor of these novels occame conciliatory as the Popular Front against Fascism gained strength, While it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the .Auden Generation' and the 'Left

83 Ncilson. 'Tsars and Commissars'. p. 496. 8~ Described in Martin Ceadcl, 'Popular Fiction and the Next War, 1918-1939' in Frank Glovcrsmith (cd.). Clt/s,\' Culture and Social Cfllmge: A New Vii'\\' of rhe 19JO~' (Brighton. 1980), p. 166. ~5 W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden: or rhe British Agen/ (Garden City [ N,Y.j. 1927). p. 273. 81> Ibid .. p. 274. ~1 Ceadel. 'Popular Fiction and the Next War', p. 171. ~~ McKibbin, Clas,\'e~' allll ClI/wreJ'. p. 425. ~q Ibid.. 479. Briti,~1r 91 E.M. Forster, 'English Literature Since the War'. Forster 8121 fos .. pp. 168-169.

115 114 His/ory Studies 31200/ His/QI)' Studies J1200!

Romania in 2000: these ~ro111ises was met. German forces en route to stop the Brusilov offensive A Look Back and a Look Forward weredlve~ed 10 Transylvania. and by 6 Dcecmber 19[6. scvemy-fivc per cem of R.omama had been occupied by the Gennans. Two hundred and fifty thousand Peter Barnes soldiers were lost .md. adding insult to broken promises. British a"ents destroyed Romania's largest oil installations to keep them oul of Gc~nan ~ands.1 What do we western Europeans know about Romania and the Romanians? TIle Despite Romania's intervention being brief and apparently disastrous. current stereotype tends to be of gypsies begging. asylum seekers who are really 11 swung the balance perrn:ll1ently against the Central powers: Kaiser Wilhelrn economic rather than political refugees. and orphanages where children are 11 had a nervous collapse: Chancellor Bethrnann-Hollweg declared the war lost neglectcd appallingly. Very few westerners think of Romanians as having and resigned: von Falkellhayn. the Gennall Chief of General Staff. called lor something valuable to offer 10 Europe. A close look at the major events of the peace negotiations and was promptly replaced with hardlincrs Hindenburg arxl twentieth century. however. will quickly reveal that Romania has made major Lu~endorf. Th.e GCrt1lU11 army was thus established as :1 greater power than the positive contributions to the defence of western democracy and the fommtion of Kaiser and hIS chancellor. preventing further civilian influence in Gennan modem Europe. This paper dmws on lesser-known Romanian sources to oOer government ,md ending any possibility of a negotiated peace selllcmem. western analysts a distinctly Romanian perspective. Ludendorf observed that '(d)espitc the victories obtained over the Romanian anny. we were weakened in the general context of the war.'~ The great western Romanian Involvement in the First World War battles of 1916 could well have ended in Gemmn victories if Romania had not In the early years of thc twentieth century. Romania was still trying 10 reach absorbed German reserves and undennincd German confidence. On the other maturity as a modcrn democracy. shaking off four hundred years of Olloman myj hand, one crm only speculate how much shorter the war might have been if Russian Tsarist domination. The king was a Gemlan prince: the political elite western guaramees had been fulrilled: Romania could have tuken Bulgaria out of was a social class of a fcw thousand wealthy boieri Md landowners, divided the war b~ Christmas 1916 and freed Transylvania, thus directly threatening between admiration for Gennan order on the one hand and for French culture on Gerrn:ll1y fro.m the south--east. Churchill's fantasy of the 'soft underbelly' of the other. French influence in Romania in the last half of the nineteenth century Europe that mfluenced so much of his strategic thinking in both world wars, ~aliIY was so strong that it was said that shon of outright colonisation, Fmnce never could have proved a if he had recognised Romania. and not Turkey or had such a great impact on any nation as its impact on Romania from 1860 10 Italy, as the key to rapid penetration into the heart of Europe. the fill de site/e, Romanian Unification and the Inter-Ucllic Period At the onset of the First World War. Romania's foreign policy Romania's single war aim had been national union. The first fruit was the imperative was the union of all Romanian lands under one crown. Most of the surprise gift of Moldova afier the Bolshevik revolution. The Austrian Romanian populations outside Romania's borders were in Austria-Hungary Emperor's gr:.lIlt of autonomy on 16 October 1918 opened the door for (Banal, Transylvania. Bucovina), while Bess.'"Imbia was under Russian rule. It realisation of the dream: assemblies of all the Romanian lands OCclarcd was unlikely that an alliance with the Central Powers would bring about the themselves insepamble parts of the Kingdom of Romania, and at the Great relllm of Austrian-ruled Romanian lands: an alliance with the forces of the Assembly of Alba lulia on December 1918. Greater Romania was born. Entente. on the other hand, offered much greater hope for national union. Thus. L Romanians from Ba~at and A?~al were harassed by Serb and Magyar forcc.~ arK! for the Romanian government. the issue was not who to suppon, but merely to stopped from attendlllg the Great Assembly. because these statc.~ had aspirations rind the most opponune moment to enter the war. Romania declared war on 27 August 1916. having been promised unlimited war ma/eriel via Russia.

Russian support in Dobrudja. allied diversionary intervention in southern I Kurt W. Trcptow, A His/ory of RO/lulflia (Ia

116 117 His/Ory Swdie,f 312001 His/OIY Studies 312001

th.ings, th~y. wer~ losers. Romania was clearly among Ihe winners, while most for the territories in question.' However. French intervention on Romania's 01 Rom,anta s nClghbours felt that they had lost territorv unfairly m 'h I" ' behalf ensured that thc borders established at the Paris conference were Romani R' I'. 'J. uc 0 It to a. ussla W:IS lUlmllated by its inability 10 ., B b' honoured. The early French support was not sustained. When the Soviet Bulgaria ,'. t' recover essara t:l; for h . ,reg'~lIIl1lg t le Quadnlateral was an essential national aim; the Serbs Republic of Hungary claimed Ardeal (Tmnsylvania) and launched an invasion in ad J~~ght bitterly at the Paris peace conference with Ion Le. Brutianu's April 1919, the Paris Peace Conference decided not to intervene. The Hungarian delegatIon over the Banat: Hungary resented the loss of A-' I "'h' ,, attack was repulsed and Romania countemttacked, stopping at the Tisza on I . .. luea. e tntenslty 01 passIOn was shown by Myklos Horthy's comment: . May. When the Hungarians attacked again on 20 July 1919, the 'Big Four' told the Romanians they would have ID establish their own border by force of arms,4 Hungary's Number One enemy is Romania because The Romanian anny did this, and more, On 10 July 1919 fomler Hungarian our greatest territorial claims are against her arK! Prime Minister Gyula Andrassy had invited Romania to ovenhrow the Bela because she is the most powerful of our neighbours. Kun regime with the affinnations: 'The only power that can liquidate Theref~re. our principal foreign policy goal is bolshevism in central Europe is Romania', and '(o)nly with your help can we Europe'~. resol~tlon of the Romanian problem by force of save our country and re--establish peace and order in the heart of arms. Romanian forces fought their way to Budapest by 3 August. being welcomed by the Hungarian democratic and conservative panics. In contrast to the Only with Yugoslavia was any real reconciliation po,e,'bl" B,' , ' 1 brutality of Hungarian forces in Ardeal and the Banal. Romanian forces T. k' I. ,'~ .... m lUnu s nva "d'donescu probabl.y saved Romania's future by his (unauthorised) concession organised soup kitchens and aid programs for the local population. This to IVI e Ihe Banat with Yugo'l .. H' n,I·· ' intervention ended the very real threat of communist domination of Central " .. s aVla. tS ,lUVlce to Klllg Ferdinand at the lime W.lS, ~o~lallla. I~ .surrounded. by three hostile nations (Russia, Hunga , Europe, Bulgaria), we C,1n t afford to allcnate the Kin"dom of the S·,b"md C' ry but at the same time as Romania was protecting Hungary's future, she was w 11' R . I k .,,,, ", rO.lts as C. ornalll:} ac ed the resources to hold all th·\t sh' h"d WO" th ' wounding her pride. The well-meant but somewhat triumphalist observation of f 11. , ' ... " .so econcept o co .ectlve. secunly was an.essential strategy to preserve Greater Romania. In Alexandru Vaida-Voivod- '{t)he Hungarians are our enemies of yesterday. our r~~SrUlng .lhlS ~oal. Romama had two outstanding foreign ministers in the vanquished foe of today. and we want them to be our friends of tomorrow'~ ­ -belhc penod,. men who were able to forge a network of defensive treaties served to exacerbate the historical antipathy of Hungarians toward their fomler The first was DUIllltru (Take) [onescu (1858-1922) H· .1_... .'. . b fJj . IS 1ll':<1Il1 was to establish vassals. .1 u. er zone - the cordo/l saniraire - around Russia that would include the ~a~llc. stales. Poland. Roma.nia. Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavias. His Collective Security and Revisionism ~~c~esses. le~s As the series of border wars and post-war treaty negotiations finished in the tho,ugh lar-reaching. were still impressive. His major achievement was the Little Entente (signed 14 June 19')1) wh' hi h early 1920s. there remained, inevitably. a set of nations who considered Jj d h ... - IC atert at ye.1T orce t e expulSIOn of the lormer Emperor Charles IV from Hungary. themselves net winners and another set who felt that. in the overall scheme of . The second great Romanian statesman of the period was Niculae Tlt~l.escu (1882-1941). Whil~ lonescu had had the advantage of a Euro an potltlcal environment that walO generally dis~··~l 10w"-' '11· ~. 1 Gheorghe Buzatu, Valcriu F. Dobrinescu. and Hori Dumitrescu. Romania a-i T. I.' .,' ,/IV""U iUU co ectlve securtty. Conferina'a de Pace de /a Paris. /9/9-/920 (Focreani, 1999). pp. 184-185. llu escu h.ld to operate III the context of rampant revisionism, led by newly • Ibid.. p. 131. , Florin Constantiniu. 0 /slOrie Sincerd a Poporului ROllull1. El/hl'ia a DOIu"i , Ibid .. p. 286. (Bucure:ecei, 1999), p. 285. , BllZ;llU, COllferi/la-a de Pace. pp. 319. 321. • Ibid., p. 286.

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Nazificd Gennany. but followed with zeal by Russia. Italy and Hungary. tk 1938-1939. followed by the collapse of France. left Romania totally exposed a11ie~. was twicc elected presidcnt of League of Nations. thc only diplomat to evcr hold and without Gencml Anlonc5CU observed. that post for two tcrms. He reorganised Linle Entente in February 1933 t.o include a permanent council and an economic council. He followed. thiS I side with the Axis because our political atd achievcment with thc Balkan Entente. signed on 9 February 1934 to proVide a economic interests coincidc. because for our security forum for peacefully resolving misunderstandings and reciprocal guar.mt~ for we cannot sepamte from Gcmlany and Italy, 1lI.J the integrity of existing borders. Titulescu was al~ the driving force be~lOd the because Romania sia wanted all of Moldavia and a land bridge to Bulgaria through claim credit for giving the final alcrt that made World War Two inevitable. 1be Dobrudja. Romania's own hopes v.ere simple: rcco,ery of territory Iw..t by the 'Tilca affair' ~ on 20 March 1939 when Viorel Tilea. Romanian Vienna Diktat and the Ru,,~ian invasion of 1940. This was more ochievablc ambassador to London. told Lord Halifax (untruthfully) that Germany had issued with Ihe Gcnnans: it allowed a military liberation of Moldavia (v.hieh Russia an ultimatum threatening Romania with a fate similar to that of would never give by negotiation). and it created a political obligation fmm the Czechoslovakia. The ploy succeeded in waking up the English government. Gennans which could be exploited to annul the Diktat. After the rapid "ictories in the campaign of aUlUmn 19-11. Romania was confronted with a new deci~ion: Sidney Astair remarked that the Tilea incident to continue fighting beyond the River Dnebter or not? The Dneister is lhe can be seen as thc primary cause of the chain of traditional ea.<>tern boundary of ROl11ani:l and the Russians had now been dri,Cfl cvents that led to thc start of World War Two from Romanian soil. American and British representatives urged the Romanians because without it Great Britain and Francc would not to invade their ally. Romania's deciSion sprang from a naive idealism. not have given tcrritorial guarantee... to Poland. ard illustrated by AllIonescu's dedar.tlion in December 1941: 'I am an ally of the Ru~sia, thc honouring of those guarantees obliged the two Reich against I am ncutr.lI in the conflict between Great Britain :n:I Am~rica J1 countries to declare war on Germany.' Gennany, and I :un for against the Jap..mese· . Not even Churchill's afnmlation of total war· 'mf Hitler invaded Hell. I would at least make a favourable reference to the devil in the House Of Commons' - was clear enough Romanian Involvement in the Second World War to the Romanians that an alliance with Hitler would override any sentimental Phase One: With the Axis For most of the one hundred years up until the start of the war, Romania had ultaChmelllS of the pa~t. Romania' s pol itlc:l1 leaders ncvcr g:lve up the hope that been striving to build close relationships with the western pow~rs. However. ~y Ihe west would accepl It llUnia as :l naluml ally. Many now speculate on 1940 the tolal failure of western guaranlees for Czechoslovakia and Poland In whether the Allies would have upheld the infegrity of Rom:lllia's borders in

I" Treplow. A Hisrlll:\' of RO/lll/nia. p. 483.

Il COllstantiniu. 0 i.l"lorh' S;I/('('f/l (/ l'ofJorului Rom/in. p. 371. • Constantiniu. 0 ISlOrie Sillcerl1 a Po/wrului ROIII(lIr, p. 339.

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Romanian forces throughout Romania In the .' 1945 if RomClnia had behaved otherwise in 1941. Looking at the ease with f'h ',. ensumg two weeks. Romanian Torce,S s ,o~ed ,heir wO,n~. takmg, prisoner fifty-three thousand German soldiers whieh the west abandoned Poland. Czechoslovakia and the Baltic states in the he IIn~.l(;t of Rom and yo '11 Tisza in May that year): more pressure could be brought to bear on Gennany to not fmd better troo s'l3) E 01' 1 ", '. U WI A . . P, n", IS I hlstonan John Enckson asserts that ')3 return Ardeal if Romania showed itself to be a more loyal ally than Hungary,l! ugust w~s one 01 the most decisive days of World War TWO l4 h'l H' J ~~:r~~tla~ leader Ante Pavclic that the defection was as great a ~Ii:s:c~ asl:~; Phase Two: With the Allies , d ~~ a~dltl~s., Gennany was forced to withdraw from Greece and the Balkans. By mid-1942 GenTIan ability to win the war was in doubt. and in September

123 122 HisIOl:V Swdil's 311001 f-fiswr,v Stt/dies 312001

leadership: a ch:mge thm led to the stagnation of the Brezhnev ', Imre Nagy, then hmldcd him over to the Russians: Romania undertook the contribution to the weakenino of Kh h h' ," years, Romanm s o . rus c ev s standing in M' I rebuilding of the AVH (Hungarian secret police), recruiting ethnic Hungarians be underestimated. oscow s lOuld not from Cluj,I5 Thus, Romania contributed in a major memmre to a twelve-year delay in the development of 'communism with a human face', And because the Ceau.sescu: Golden Years and Decline Hungarian crisis caused the Americans to panic and force the French and The lall of Khnlshchcv was followed closeI b " ', English to withdraw from Suez, Romania contributed to the downfall of Ghcorghiu-Dcj and the" y y the dc,uh of hIs old fnend England as a major world power. Although Dej put Khrushchev in Romania's debt by his active behind-the-scenes support for the Russian invasion, it ~b~~etantt~b~~;:re~h~lat: ',i,~c~~;:~~~g~~U,~~l~~;l~~: f~~cit;~ 1~~ir;;,n~~:Il:~:~C~~:~ .. wes an opportunity to expl 't ' awakened the Romanian leadership to their own vulnerability. Dej remarked to communist bloc '17 R' Ol an :lpparent breach in the Silvio Brucall '(i)f we don't turn one hundred and eighty degrees in our relations USSR 'U d' f' f omal1la r~mnaged to be at the same time an ally of the 'b ,1 a orce or weakenlllg the division of the world' with the Russians, we are lost: camps, reoccupying the role she had held as reconciler of Eu~nto~wo amlCd wars, 1967 was Ccausescu's vaunted' . f'. ". pc twcen the Moves toward Independence under Gheorghiu-Dej diplomatic links with the Fede I RyearbO" ,Ifcedom . III wh':h he established Within two years, Romania started looking for their payoff - but even this wa~ , ' Ta epu IC of Gennany (I-RG) . d ·1 among the Soviet satellites kept d' I ,'. r ,In • a one made to look like help for Soviet strategic goals, As Americans forces boosted War. !-le allowed the Rom~nian J~~i~;~1~~I11:~~~i~o :sr,~el, during the Six ~ay NATO strength, Dej proposed that Soviet land forces be removed from Congrcss. and started cashing in on the new dipIOfm~ic~i~~I; ;~e \~or,ld J,C~ISh Romania, On 25 July 1958 the Soviet Union removed her 35.000 troops from between four :md tcn thousand doll' " ' r a head t,lX of Romanian soil as part of a negotiation strategy to force NATO to reduce its ,ars per emigrant, Ceausescu allowed h' Germans and Jews 10 em!gnl" to " "RG d et mc troop levels, Though this was a safe reduction for the USSR because Romania ,.. le I an Israel. Ceausescu earned international a I b h' , was not a front line state. it put the Soviets on the moral high ground at a time thc RU,ssi:t11 invasion of Czechoslovak'ia (J1~P~V~u '~st 1:9~~lc~ ~enunciation of when American involvement around the world under the Dulles brothcrs' knew It was part of a three pb:lse phn b M ~' . I.lrgely, because he obsessive anti-communist philosophy was making America the world's bully, W~n;h.. aw Pact states (invasions of Ro;nani~ an~s~Ou~o~~a:~:~~~ISt~C;U1~r il~ However, it was the last Romanian favour to her eastern neighbour, nelt cr Dubcek nor Ceausescu 11"'" ..",, 0 ow. Hcnceforward, Romanian leaden; found Romanian security to be better •

" Dennis De1ctant, Romllnia Under COlJlmunist Rule (laa:i. 1999), pp, 93-95 '1 Dektalll, /{U/lUlIli(1 IIIlder COIIlIlllllliJt Nllfe. p, 106. '" Constantiniu. 0 Is/urie SiIlCl'f(i 1I Poporlllui R/JIII(IIl. p, 458,

124 125 4

History Swdies 31100 I llis/ory Swdies 3/2001

1974 saw a change for the worse for 'the genius of the Carpathi~ns': Danube':!\). This geographic area has been inhabited by the Romanians for over his old mentor Ion Gheorghe Maurer retired, and his wife Elena was ap~mted Iwo thousand years, and not even waves of invasion and annexation of parts of to Central Cnmmiuee, This led to a rise in Ceausescu's meg~I~I.nal11a aOO the area have weakened the sense of identity and purpose of Romanians to be paranoia, and, as a consequent, the loss of i~temationa' credlblh~y .as th~ unified in one nation state. The second is a sense of continual exploitation aoo Romanian economy entered a prolonged dechne: by 1979 Romal11a. ~as bctmyal by the major states of Europe: in this century, the broken Allied importing oil from the USSR: national debt tripled from three .and a half bllhon promises of 1916. the failure of western guarantees for the Linle Entente 31Kl dollars in 1977 to ten billion in 1981. There began a cham of eve~ls t~at Poland in 1938-1939, the rejection of peace ovenurcs shon of unconditional exposed the moral bankntptcy of the Ceaus~scu regim~, shockin~ and ahenatm~ surrender in 1942~1944, culminating in Churchill's concessions at Moscow western leaders. In 1978 Mihai Pacepa (ChIef of Foreign Intelhgence) ~fected. (9~17 October 1944) thm Romania should be part of the USSR's sphere of his 1987 book Red Hurizons scandalised western leaders with its n;;ve1atlOns ~f influence. and the lip service suppon for the democratic panics but total the extent of Romanian interference with expatriates. The "Dcm~graphlc accepl:lllCe of Russian policy in 1945~1947; the lack of western investment Program' _ a legal requirement for every family to have at least three chlldren:­ since 1990 and imposition of IMFlWorld Bank !ais.I'ez jain' monetarist wa.<; launched in March 1984 with the exhortation "(b)reed, comrade women, LI capitalism. Possibly the pinnacle of perceived western betrayal was the implied is your patriotic duty:'R The 1985 thaw between Reag~n and Gorbach~v meant promise of NATO membership {hat led President Constaminescu to sign a the USA no longer needed a strategic thorn in the SIde of the RUSSians aOO treaty with Ukraine on 2 June 1997 accepting the existing border between the withdrew MFN status, Ceausescu's isolation increased until by the end o~ the two states. This concession was seen by many as a betrayal equal to the 1980s, his only friends were Gaddafi Saddmn Hussein, Fidel Castro. and Kll~ Il concessions that led to Carol [J's forced abdication in 1940. The ongoing Sung. Romanian isolation was highlighted in Man;h 1~89. when the U~llted aspirations for Greater Romania - reineorporation of Moldova and nonhem Nations human rights commitlee voted 21-7 for an 1l1qUlry lIlto h.uman nghts Bucovina ~ presem a potential for war with Ukraine; cominual minority abuses in Romania. Of her former allies; the USSR. Bulgana :Illd. East agitation for grealer Hungari:m autonomy in Transylvania feeds a historically Gennany abstained. whil~ Hu~~ary voted in favour. De~etant .re~~rks lrol11cally justiliable fear of a "Kosovo' type crisis - with the assumption that NATO on Ceausescu's success 'm Ullltlllg East and West ~ agalllst him. would support Hungarian intervention rather than uphold Romanian sovereignty. The Future The future of Romania depends very much on recemly re-elected Romania has already accepted a role in the "New Collective Security' of Eur~pe: president Ion lIiescu. He has come 10 power promising a pro-Europe "IlK.! she has been an active participant in the NATO Pact for Peace program sl~ce anti--comJption program, but as a lielllenant of Ceauscscu and president from 1993. Anticipating a future invitation into NATO, Romania conduded treaties 1990 to 1996, his track l1.X'Ord was of an orientation toward Russia, al'd with Hungary (1996) and Ukraine (1997), not without great int~r~al cOI~trovers~ institutionalised corruption. Onc can ask whether his past malters if he now has over territorial concessions. Future developments must be antlclpnted In .terms a dearly legitimate mandate to govern. Iliescu has thc cxperience and the of two issues that influence Romanian strategic thinking, Firstly, there LS t~e polilical connections to lead Romania well, but he is now over seventy, 31~ dream of 'Greater Romania', 10 unite under one government the ellllre some see a pamlle! between Romania's present balance of power mid the Romanian space. 'from the Dneister to the Tisza, from Mar.tmurea: to the situgtion in Germany in 1930::-[933: the ultra~nationalist Greater Romania P,lny (PRM) is the second largest bloc in P:lrliament, and if Iliescu fni)s to Ic::ld welL or the region destabilises, 2004 could sce something like 1933 in

" D. Aspinal!. 'Romania: Queul.'S and Personalily Cults' in Sol'iel Amliyst 16 May 1984, p. 4. 'Cl King Ferdinand. Declawlioll al Grcal Nalional Assembly. Alba lulia. I Dcccmlx:r ,. Deletanl, ROlllllllia ullder Communist Ruie, p. 138. 1918.

126 127 History Studies 3/2001

" , lied on an ultra-nationalist party to Gennany, when the agmg Hmdenburg ca R ',' future de"""'nds on her , f h' Above all else, omama s I~ , lead the nation out 0 c aos, k' '", Romania _ missionanes. ~op1e. " 't of westerners wor lllg , ,.- The huge maJon y( ,presentatlves'. - ,11 obc"rve"'" the same thmg: businessmen. and governmen re, h he" wealthy land _ abundant ,I 'blenPople;teyav .. ' , Romulllans are a c ever. capa ,1-- "b ( (hey have certain negatIve 'I 'I a strategic locatIOn. u minerals. fertl C SOl. f ' 'n ""d exploitation that stop th usand years 0 lllvaSlO "" UniversityafLimerick expectations fr0",1 two ,0 "' can et over the past. they can own them from fulfilll1lg their potentIal. If they g, t ole in Europe and 10 a FOUNDATION . the future, They can restore Romania to a pre--enllnen r role of innuence in the Middle East.

The University of Limerick Foundation was established in 1989 to provide, in partnership with the University. intermlliollal leadership and support for the advancement ofthe University of Limerick,

Directed by a Board of international leaders from the fields of business. industry and the arts, the Foundation has raised in excess of 1R£30 million to assist the development of the University. It does this through:

• endowed professorships

• scholarships and fellowships and

• capital developments including the Foundation building, a IRII5 million research, training and cultural complex,

The Foundation secured funding for the new lR£14 million Lewis and Lorefta Glucksman Library and lnfoonation Services Building which was completed in ~ 1998,- \

129 128 Contributors

Sean Patrick Donlan, BA, MA has just started a Ph.D. at N.U .1.

Brian T. Kirby, BA, MA has just staned his Ph.D. on Civic Politics and Parliamentary Representation in Waterford City. 1730-1807 al NUl, Maynooth. History Studies University of Limerick History Society Paul Montgomcry, BA has just completed a joint honours degree in History and Theology al NUl and Journal SI. Patrick's College, Maynooth in 2001. He is currently working on a book on the subject of the Holy Eucharist. Subscription Form

Neil Jakob, BA studied Modern History. Political Science and Law in Freiburg, before To place an order for copies of the 2002 edition please transferring to Trinity College Dublin where he received his B.A. in History in fill ID the attached form and forward it to: 1997. He is currently conducting postgraduate research in Trinity College (Soldiers, Sacrifice and the Politics of Memory). He also teaches in the The Editors, History 5t11dies, University of Limerick History Society, Departments of Modem History at NUl Maynooth and Trinity College. and has Students' Union. University of Limerick. Limerick, Ireland. conducted research illto the First World War for RTE. Narne: _ John E. Ouggan, BA, MA is a mature student and has just graduated with an MA from St. Patrick's Address: _ College (The Educalion Policies of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government in the Irish Free State). He is presently tcaching in Avondale Community College, Rathdrum, Co, Wicklow.

Michael Farrclly, MA has just graduated from NUl Galway with an MA. Please send me __ copies of History Studies, 2002 (ISSN 1393-7782). Gabriel P. I)aquette, MA has just completed his MA al N.V.I. Galway in Culture and Colonialism. Su~scription prices arc €5 fopnembers of the Society and €6 for ind,·v,·d . I rfd' . .... uus a Hlstltullons. Please add €2 r~r postage and packing, per copy. Peter Barnes is president of the 'Open Doors' Foundation in Bucharest. Romania. 'Open a I endose a. cheque/postal order/international money order for ~-- payable [0 Doors' is a non-profit. non-governmental organisalion with educational. th e UL HIstory Society. cultural. and charitable activities.

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